I use this patch system in production and I agree. For small JSON documents, this system actually can result in larger patch files than the original document.
Instead of using this everywhere we output JSON however, we only use this patch system on large documents. It cuts our average transfer size from ~60KB (full JSON data) to ~2KB (patch data) per API request after the initial load since only a handful of values change over the polling interval.
Instead of using this everywhere we output JSON however, we only use this patch system on large documents. It cuts our average transfer size from ~60KB (full JSON data) to ~2KB (patch data) per API request after the initial load since only a handful of values change over the polling interval.