If our database engine would allow us to not only use the Serialized LOB strategy but also search based on its value, we would have the best of both approaches. Well, good news: now you can do this. As of PostgreSQL version 9.4, support for JSONB has been added. Value Objects can be persisted as JSON serializations and subsequently queried within this JSON serialization.

MySQL has done the same. As of MySQL 5.7.8, MySQL supports a native JSON data type that enables efficient access to data in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) documents. According to the MySQL 5.7 Reference Manual, the JSON data type provides these advantages over storing JSON-format strings in a string column:

• Automatic validation of JSON documents stored in JSON columns. Invalid documents produce an error.
• Optimized storage format. JSON documents stored in JSON columns are converted to an internal format that permits quick read access to document elements. When the server later must read a JSON value stored in this binary format, the value need not be parsed from a text representation. The binary format is structured to enable the server to look up subobjects or nested values directly by key or array index without reading all values before or after them in the document.

If Relational Databases add support for document and nested document searches with high performance and with all the benefits of an Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability(ACID) philosophy, it could save a lot of complexity in many projects.