That Randy Brown

Files over Apps

I read this phrase on hackernews recently, and it's made me reflect a lot on the value of Markdown, file based content, and the rise of file driven app experiences, like obsidian which leverages variant markdown, and what is closed source is the experience.

Files over apps means, to me, what it sounds like: that consumers prefer files more than apps, or apps that provide data via file management over apps that lock their data within it. This comes from a place of distrust for both the ethics and the longevity of nascent and even entrenched companies, and the lack of control of what happens to user data--either it is sold, or it disappears when the company closes their doors.

The barrier to entry is lower if a user knows they own their data, and that data is in a broadly consumable standard format. It also allows for workflows across toolchains, like using obsidian for note-taking and then publishing them to a blog built with eleventy (not to put too fine a point on it).

Files based experiences offer users another value point--a savvy user can fill gaps in their workflow that the app hasn't filled by providing another tool to consume the file. In the past, I've written that people that care enough about task management that the many existing apps should create their own, but maybe if one person could build a file based task management system (and indeed, obsidian and logseq offer some entrants in this space), then others could 'chain' the experience and customize it with their own rulesets by consuming the produced file.

This approach has an advantage for entrepreneurs I think too--sure data egress feels like it's giving up the only moat that exist in the 20th century, but it's also a selling point for consumers and companies that value privacy or have to have it for regulatory or compliance reasons (like working with medical records).

In addition, not having to worry about file management beyond 'save and load a file', which are solved problems, allowing the developer to focus on the core experience and toolchain.