Obsidian amassed millions of users in just a few years. Notion became the default tool for countless teams. GitHub READMEs are almost universally written in Markdown. This "plain text renaissance" didn't happen by accident. After decades of Word and Google Docs dominance, why are more people returning to what looks like a more primitive format? The answer lies in the philosophy of format design itself.
1. The Format Wars: .docx vs Plain Text
Before Microsoft Word went mainstream, engineers and academics wrote almost exclusively in plain text. Word introduced WYSIWYG editing — a genuine convenience — but it also introduced a set of long-term problems:
- Format lock-in: .docx is a closed binary format. Without Word or Google Docs, opening and editing it reliably is surprisingly difficult.
- Format corruption: Version mismatches, missing fonts, and cascading style errors are a constant pain when sharing across platforms.
- Version control incompatibility: Git and similar tools are largely helpless with binary formats — you can't meaningfully track who changed what.
- Search and indexing limitations: Binary formats complicate full-text search and require more storage space for backups.
Plain text has none of these problems. It's a universal format — any text editor on any operating system can open it, search it, and version-control it down to individual character changes.
2. Markdown: The Sweet Spot Between Plain Text and Rich Formatting
The downside of pure plain text is that it has no typographic semantics. You can write # Heading, but without rendering it's just a line of text — not a visually distinct heading.
In 2004, John Gruber and Aaron Swartz designed Markdown with a specific goal: make plain text look as close to its rendered output as possible. The key design decision: Markdown source should be readable even without rendering.
# Heading looks like a heading. **bold** looks like emphasized text. - list item looks like a list. This "visual consistency" means Markdown is highly readable in its raw form — you don't need to render it to understand the structure.
3. Where Is Markdown Actually Used?
Markdown's reach is broader than most people realize:
- GitHub / GitLab: All READMEs, Issues, Pull Requests, and Wikis support Markdown natively
- Technical documentation: Docusaurus, MkDocs, and Sphinx use Markdown as their primary format
- Blogging platforms: Hugo, Jekyll, and Hexo generate static sites from Markdown files
- Note-taking apps: Obsidian, Logseq, Joplin, and Bear all store notes as Markdown files
- Collaboration platforms: Notion, Confluence, Slack, and Discord all support Markdown syntax
- Academic writing: Pandoc converts Markdown to LaTeX, PDF, and DOCX, making it increasingly popular in research
4. Why Engineers Love Markdown
For engineers, Markdown solves a fundamental problem: documentation should live alongside code and go through the same version control workflow.
When project documentation is written in Markdown, you can:
- Use
git diffto see exactly what changed in the docs — line by line, character by character - Review documentation changes in Pull Requests, with the same tooling used for code review
- Validate document formatting and link integrity in CI/CD pipelines automatically
- Keep documentation in sync with code — because they evolve together in the same repository
The reason Markdown works so well with version control is that plain text makes "compare two versions" a tractable problem. Word document diffs are notoriously difficult to read and often require specialized tools. Plain text diffs are standardized — any tool can handle them, and the output is human-readable.
5. Why Did Obsidian Go Viral? The Plain Text Advantage in Practice
Obsidian launched in 2020 and crossed one million users within two years. Its core design decision: all notes are stored as local Markdown files, not in a cloud database.
This choice delivers several concrete advantages:
| Feature | Traditional Cloud Notes (Evernote, etc.) | Obsidian (Local Markdown) |
|---|---|---|
| Data ownership | Data lives on vendor servers | Data lives on your machine |
| Offline use | Requires network sync | Fully offline |
| Export flexibility | Often requires a paid plan | Direct access to .md files |
| Search speed | Dependent on server response | Instant local full-text search |
| Vendor lock-in | High (switching requires migration) | Low (any editor can open the files) |
Obsidian's rise is partly a backlash against vendor lock-in — users realized that locking years of notes into a proprietary format is a hidden long-term risk.
6. Plain Text and Longevity: Will You Still Be Able to Read It in Twenty Years?
Here's a question most people never think to ask: will the notes you write today still be readable in twenty years?
.doc files from the 1990s often require "compatibility mode" in modern Word, and formatting may have degraded beyond recovery. Plain text files from the 1990s open perfectly in any text editor today — because plain text has no version number and no dependencies.
For knowledge that needs to last (personal journals, research notes, a long-term knowledge base), plain text is currently the most future-proof digital format available.
7. Where Markdown Falls Short
Markdown isn't a universal solution. Some scenarios still call for other tools:
- Complex layout: Multi-column designs, precise image-text flow, and header/footer styling still require Word or InDesign
- Real-time collaboration: When multiple people edit the same document simultaneously, Google Docs' live collaboration experience still outperforms most Markdown editors
- Non-technical users: For people unfamiliar with syntax,
**bold**is less intuitive than a toolbar button - Complex tables: Markdown's table syntax is limited — no cell merging, no formulas
No tool is inherently better or worse — just more or less suited to a given job. Markdown shines when you need version control, long-term archiving, cross-platform sharing, or documentation that lives alongside code.
8. Word Count in Markdown: A Hidden Complication
There's one often-overlooked catch when writing in Markdown: word counts can differ significantly depending on whether you measure raw Markdown or rendered output.
Raw Markdown includes syntax characters (#, **, [], etc.) that disappear after rendering. If you need a precise count — for freelance billing, SEO article length targets, or submission requirements — it matters whether you're counting the raw source or the rendered plain text.
9. Summary
The plain text and Markdown revival reflects a broader rethinking of digital content ownership and longevity:
- Data ownership: Your notes should belong to you, not to a vendor's proprietary format
- Long-term readability: Plain text is the most durable digital format currently available
- Version control compatibility: Documentation and code should use the same workflow
- Universal portability: Markdown is supported in virtually every modern writing and development tool
If you haven't tried writing notes or documentation in Markdown, starting with a simple README or daily log is a low-friction entry point. Many people find that removing the visual noise of formatting tools actually helps them think more clearly.