After clicking around in growing confusion, I finally found a single screenshot of the application in action in the GitHub README file. Spoiler: it looks like any other note-taking application.
Yeah if there's anything that will prevent me from downloading a free application like this.. it would be the complete lack of a preview of what the thing is. Strange decision not to include a screenshot or gif of the application in action ANYWHERE on the marketing site.
You can also use the web version. To me that's what I like about SN. Joplin/Obsidian seem cool, but I'd rather everything be in the cloud, so that if change computers I don't have to go through endless setup.