This is good and detailed, but misses a broader trend: how "worse is better" started to win - first Java over C++, then python and javascript over Java, and here markdown over Word and docbook.
When markdown emerged, docbook was getting even more elaborate, and vendors everywhere had for decades been locking people into frameworks and languages with fantastic features that were hard to use -- and then the internet bubble had popped. Then people realized they'd thrown away years building complex system, and had little tolerance for promises.
Markdown is something you can use in its native form. It's both source and destination, with a touch of future-proofing: if the opportunity arrives, you can polish it into anything, and mostly parse it yourself.
(What's surprising to me is that pandoc barely registers when compared with markdown on google trends since 2004; pandoc is the reason I switched completely to markdown in ~2010)
When markdown emerged, docbook was getting even more elaborate, and vendors everywhere had for decades been locking people into frameworks and languages with fantastic features that were hard to use -- and then the internet bubble had popped. Then people realized they'd thrown away years building complex system, and had little tolerance for promises.
Markdown is something you can use in its native form. It's both source and destination, with a touch of future-proofing: if the opportunity arrives, you can polish it into anything, and mostly parse it yourself.
(What's surprising to me is that pandoc barely registers when compared with markdown on google trends since 2004; pandoc is the reason I switched completely to markdown in ~2010)