I'm suggesting that newer developers will find Exif to be quite different from hierarchical file formats that use delimiters between data elements, as is common practice lately with XML / JSON / YAML / etc. And it is technically somewhat challenging to manipulate Exif using the most popular high-level languages. Obviously competent developers can overcome these challenges.
That sounds exactly like a file format to me. Are you suggesting that json is the only format developers might be aware of?