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I have two questions: 1) What's the problem that's being solved? 2) And what's a good answer?

I'm genuinely curious because I've never considered Markdown anything more than a way to more easily render text -- which it seems to do fine. But, maybe I've just exposed myself as an average user..

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1) See here[1] - problem very specifically being solved is lack of readability of HTML (and HTML being the only open portable spec for formatted text).

2) A good answer is another, more efficient open spec for encoding formatted text - meaning I can use any app to format my text, then open it in another app and be sure I have full fidelity. This fidelity would be constrained by a requirement of HTML output.

[1]: https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax#philosop...

Isn't the answer CommonMark?

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