Apache Iceberg got a Variant type — no more JSON blobs

Apache Iceberg is a table format that sits on top of Parquet, Avro, and ORC. It tracks what changed, when, and who changed it. The latest release adds a Variant type for storing JSON without having to write it as a string.

Before, you had two choices: keep the JSON as a blob and lose the ability to query inside it, or flatten everything into columns and lose the structure. Variant is the middle path. The data stays JSON, but Iceberg can now read individual fields without deserializing the whole thing.

Why this matters for us: as more tools move from blob storage to lakehouse formats, Variant means the data stays queryable — not locked inside a JSON string — and that matters for anything we're building on top of it.

Why this matters for us: it means the JSON we write today won't become a fossil we have to dig out later.