This expands the API where json.load now only accepts open file objects to support str and pathlike objects. This was discussed in https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2017-March/045303.html where there were alternatives proposed as below : 

with path.open() as f: obj = json.load(f)

some_path.write_text(json.dumps(obj), encoding='utf8')
json.loads(some_path.read_text(encoding='utf8'))

Also supporting str and pathlib passes responsibility to json.load to open them and also close them properly? I think this needs a python-ideas discussion if the proposal has something to add other than the previous thread where many alternatives were mentioned for terse code.