Opinion
Plain text notes outlast every app.
Every note app you've loved will eventually sunset, pivot, or paywall the export button. A plain text file from thirty years ago still opens today, on anything. That's the whole argument, but it got stronger recently: AI models read and write plain text natively, which quietly turned your Markdown files into the most future-proof asset in your stack.
Fifteen years in this business means I've done data migrations out of at least six dead or dying note systems, and the pattern never changes: the app was delightful, the export was painful, and the notes that survived intact were the ones that had been plain text all along. At this point my position is less a preference than scar tissue.
What plain text actually gets you
Four properties no app can promise. Portability: it opens on every device made in the last four decades and every one coming. Durability: no server shutdown can take it from you. Inspectability: you can search it with any tool, diff two versions, and see exactly what changed. And composability: it commits to git next to your code, pipes through scripts, and syncs through anything that moves files. Formats with those properties don't need a business model to keep existing, which is the property that matters most.
The AI turn made this stronger
Here's the part the old plain-text argument didn't have. Language models are text-native: Markdown is effectively their mother tongue. A folder of .md files is something any model, today's or 2030's, can read, search, summarize, and extend without an importer or an API. Proprietary note databases need the vendor to build AI features; your plain files work with every AI tool, including whichever ones don't exist yet. Your notes stopped being storage and became a substrate.
The one-file pattern
You don't need a vault of hundreds of files to get the benefits. For working notes, one file per area of life does it: grouped by project, dated entries, tasks as checkboxes, newest first. Readable in a year without a manual. That format is exactly what JotThread maintains from inside Claude conversations, and it's hand-editable on purpose; the tool serves the file, never the reverse. If a whole app for that sounds like too much system, good instinct, and the second-brain post is the longer version of why.
The honest limits
Plain text is bad at images, real-time collaboration, and anything needing rich layout. If your work is visual boards with a team, use the tool built for that. For the private record of what you decided, what you owe, and what you learned, nothing has beaten a text file in forty years, and nothing on the horizon looks likely to.
Common questions
Markdown or plain .txt?
Markdown. It's still plain text, opens everywhere text opens, and the light structure (headings, checkboxes, lists) is exactly what both humans and AI models parse well.
What about images and attachments?
The honest limit of the format. Keep files next to the notes in a folder and reference them by name. If your notes are mostly images, plain text is the wrong tool and that's fine.
How do I sync plain text between devices?
Any file sync works because it's just files: a synced folder, a git repo, whatever you already run. No vendor required, which is rather the point.
One command in, one file out.
JotThread writes everything to jotthread.md: plain Markdown, yours forever, board included. $29 once.