The whole point of Markdown is that the formatting codes intutitively make sense and are readable even without a viewer and without needing to read a specification first. People have been using asterisks as bullet points and to emphasise things long before anyone came up with Markdown.

Maybe it doesn't to you, but it does to most people.

An update to Microsoft Notepad which renders Markdown is currently being rolled out: https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2025/05/30/text-fo...