[refset]

> I don’t understand how there hasn’t been more innovation in this space

I think it's simply that most businesses and investors don't register SQL as having any real problems, and especially now with a resurgent interest in SQL the idea of attempting anything novel feels too risky.

Shameless plug of one recent attempt to offer something different: XTQL https://docs.xtdb.com/intro/what-is-xtql.html

[account-5]

Having been forced to write queries as JSON in elastic I definitely prefer writing SQL. I would actively avoid utilizing any query language where I have to count brackets.

[refset]

Handcrafting JSON is undoubtedly always a pain, but the idea with XTQL is rather that it can be easily generated from any regular programming language.

> I would actively avoid utilizing any query language where I have to count brackets

That's really an editor/tooling problem, solvable in many ways, but I guess a Python-like/Parinfer approach would be your preference? (where whitespace/indentation is significant)

[account-5]

True enough, tooling is key. I'm not a developer but I think SQL is a decent language that's easy to pick up. But I also like xpath, regex, and jq syntax too, so maybe I'm the weird one.