Make stuff up

A recent Signals & Threads episode touched on how Jane street uses their own custom protocols for network communication. Internally, their services do not use HTTP, but instead speak a custom protocol over TCP/UCP. I vaguely remember a similar thing being mentioned by Matt Godbolt in his Two's Complement podcast; he was talking about how web dev in finance firms looks very different. Their UI's usually just open up a websocket connection and speak a custom protocol with the server.

I wish more people built exactly what they needed. No one cares about your needs more than you do, so inventing a protocol that solves your exact problems shouldn't be off the table¹. You do not need permission to deviate from the well-worn, standard path. It's software! It's mostly an imaginary world to begin with. You can go your own way when it makes sense.¹ As long as you document it.