There’s this thing I see a lot on sites like reddit or Hacker News where someone will post about a mainstream app like Notion or Spotify or Dropbox, and people will rush in saying “I do not see why users would choose Notion over Obsidian”, or the infamous “you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem” Dropbox response. And like, I understand where they’re coming from, but I also don’t. Why would someone use Notion over Obsidian? Maybe it’s because most people don’t care about backlinks or offline mode or building a knowledge graph? Maybe they just want a place to dump some notes. Why would someone want Dropbox? Maybe it’s because it’s a pain in the ass to set up an FTP account and use SVN just to save some files?

The average person cares less about stuff than you’d think. Even my examples are too niche. Realistically most people don’t use Notion either. They probably just use Apple Notes or idk, Google Docs?

You could call this expert blindness, but I don’t think that’s exactly right. It’s normie blindness. Plenty of experts are normies. Plenty are not. You see this with programmers. Some have a crazy custom Linux setup that they build from source, while others use macOS with the default theme. In fact, I’ve found that it’s a bit of a rite of passage to get really into customizing stuff, only to realize it’s not really worth it and go back to the normie setup. Maybe you dual boot Gentoo and Ubuntu to learn how stuff works, then scrap it for a Macbook Air.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with customization or nerding out on tools. But I think people misunderstand how much of a niche it is. I also think they misunderstand their own interest. If you have a super custom editor setup, that’s not because you’re a programmer and that’s what real programmers do. It’s because you like customizing your editor setup. If you use Obsidian, it’s partially because you like taking notes, but I bet you also really like customizing your note taking setup, and reading Vannevar Bush, and imagining ways to visualize your notes. You like the process. Which is great! But for most people, that’s just extra nonsense that’s getting in the way of their task.

This leads into another reason why people return back to normie setups as they progress. They start working and realize that the time spent customizing their editor or whatever could be spent doing their work. In a sense that’s a little sad. There’s some fun, amateurish joy in doing this customization. But it’s also a pragmatic choice that comes with understanding what actually contributes to successful outcomes.

Anyways my point here isn’t to shame people who love customization or getting into the details. They’re the people who drive innovation and eventually their ideas trickle down to the normies. But it’s important to recognize how distant we often are from the average person.