It is parsing text, but that text does have some consistent structure. Contained within it are properties. One can make the same comment of reading JSON or XML but I'll admit those are more like what you'd choose for an API. In general there is a not-entirely-obvious (to me) question of where does "formatted for machines" end, and "formatted for humans" begin? We can't say "it's for machines if and only if it must conform a schema that's defined in advance", not any more.