If you look at the apis on programmableweb.com, most newer apis do not support SOAP.  Is that a harbinger of the future ? I think so. The reason for the explosion of HTTP was its simplicity.  Think of why Java applets failed over Javascript – because it is simple to put together stuff in Javascript (non programmers can do it).

SOAP does not pass the simplicity step.

If a developer wants to call a REST api – he just opens a socket connection to the server and posts/gets an XML which he parses. Time taken to try it out – about an hour

If a developer wants to call a SOAP api – he has to

1. Pick a stub generator
2. Read the documentation
3. Figure out the jar file dependencies
4. Generate stubs and skeletons
5. Write the code to call the stubs
6. ….

The list is even longer on the server side. No wonder SOAP adoption is decreasing. But really what does SOAP buy you over just sending XML over HTTP. So the demise should really be celebrated