· · Daniel A
Why Plain Text Will Outlive Every App
Markdown and plain text have survived every tech revolution. Here's why simplicity wins.
I have notes from 1997 that I can still read today.
They're in .txt files. Plain ASCII text. No special encoding, no proprietary format, no database. Just characters in a file.
I also have notes from 2005 that are completely inaccessible. They're trapped in a format that no longer has a working reader. The company went bankrupt, the app was abandoned, and my data died with it.
This experience shaped how we built SimplyBoard.
The Graveyard of Formats
Think about all the apps and formats that have come and gone:
- WordPerfect documents from the 80s
- Lotus Notes databases
- Palm Pilot memo files
- Microsoft Journal files
- Evernote's proprietary XML format (still exists, but for how long?)
Every one of these was "the future" at some point. Every one is now either dead or dying. The only format that survived every revolution? Plain text.
Plain Text Advantages
- Opens in any editor on any operating system
- No vendor lock-in
- Version control friendly (git works perfectly)
- Searchable with standard tools (grep, etc.)
- Compresses extremely well
- Human-readable without special software
Enter Markdown
Markdown is just plain text with a few conventions. Asterisks for bold, hash symbols for headings, dashes for lists. It's readable even in a basic text editor, but renders beautifully when processed.
Created in 2004, Markdown has become the de facto standard for technical writing. It powers GitHub READMEs, Reddit comments, Discord messages, and countless note-taking apps. It's not going anywhere.
The beauty of Markdown is that even if every Markdown renderer disappeared tomorrow, your files would still be perfectly readable. The formatting is just suggestions·the content remains accessible.
How SimplyBoard Embraces This
SimplyBoard stores your entries as plain text or Markdown. That's it. No proprietary format, no complex database schema, no binary blobs.
Yes, we encrypt your content for privacy. But the encrypted payload is still just text that gets decrypted into... more text. If SimplyBoard disappeared tomorrow, you could export your data and open it in Notepad.
The Export Promise
Your data will always be exportable as plain text or Markdown files. We will never hold your notes hostage in a format only we can read.
But What About Rich Formatting?
Here's the uncomfortable truth: most "rich" formatting is noise. Colors, fonts, elaborate layouts·they feel productive but rarely add value to your notes.
When you're searching for that API key you saved six months ago, you don't care what font it was in. You care about finding it fast.
Plain text forces clarity. If you can't express an idea in words, fancy formatting won't save it. And when you review your notes months later, the signal-to-noise ratio of plain text is unbeatable.
Betting on Simplicity
Every year, new "revolutionary" note-taking apps appear. They have AI, databases, graphs, automation. They're impressive demos. Most will be dead in five years.
We're betting on simplicity. Text has been around for thousands of years. It will outlive every app built on it·including ours.
And that's exactly how it should be. Your notes are yours. They should survive whatever happens to the tools you used to create them.
· The SimplyBoard Team
