Even in 2021, Google Workspace had more than 3 billion users. I believe that 99% of these individuals had no clue what Markdown was. If they had, perhaps third-party apps that can connect to Google Drive, such as StackEdit, would be much more popular now.
No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
21–30 of 107 posts
Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
#22Simple: if you make your documents in Markdown, you won't be making them in Google Docs. Stuff made in Google Docs is sticky, increases your dependence on Google, and importantly has a valuable network effect due to their collaboration features. It is in Google's best interest to encourage you to rely on their proprietary services instead of offering you alternatives that allow you to switch provider easily. Addition…
"people who know what Markdown is" overlaps very much with "people who have to use google docs for work but would prefer a consistent editing experience". Basically every dev I know has to use either teams/sharepoint/office or google docs, but most are also more comfortable with using markdown and use it for technical docs. I'd love to have a google docs option of creating a "simple doc", that is backed by markdown a…
Yes, pretty much this. I use Sharepoint and teams because I have to, not because I would think they are good or because I liked them. Sharepoint in particular is horrible, Teams are only slightly better.
I want markdown on sharepoint.
Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
#23They have a whole app store for Google Drive. There are markdown editors in there as well as plenty of other niche things. https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2500820
Sure, if you are trusting 3rd party access to your data. Yet another layer of trust for a (niche) service that might just vanish into thin air. No, thank you.
Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
#24Nor for simple text files.
Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
#25They have a whole app store for Google Drive. There are markdown editors in there as well as plenty of other niche things. https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2500820
Sure, if you are trusting 3rd party access to your data. Yet another layer of trust for a (niche) service that might just vanish into thin air. No, thank you.
It's not like Markdown is some rare, unheard of format. I think it's the most used file format for technical docs / content / notes these days, and it's here to stay (because it's simple, it's easy and it's portable). Besides, most well-known note-taking services and apps are based on Markdown, or they export losslessly to Markdown.
Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
#26Get yourself an old-fashioned web-space, setup a nextcloud instance ... profit.
Already using a Synolgy DSM server - and it's a great experience - but, most (the rest) of the world is running on Google services, this is the reality, so, when it comes to sharing and collaboration capabilities, you're kinda stuck on the outside. I don't really like spreading too thin by using a ton of (more or less overlapping) services instead of using just one (Drive).
Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
#27Google Drive doesn't directly support editing of text files either.
Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
#28Simple: if you make your documents in Markdown, you won't be making them in Google Docs. Stuff made in Google Docs is sticky, increases your dependence on Google, and importantly has a valuable network effect due to their collaboration features. It is in Google's best interest to encourage you to rely on their proprietary services instead of offering you alternatives that allow you to switch provider easily. Addition…
Agree completely with the first paragraph and disagree completely with the second paragraph.
There are lots of us who use Google drive at work that love md.
Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
#29Simple: if you make your documents in Markdown, you won't be making them in Google Docs. Stuff made in Google Docs is sticky, increases your dependence on Google, and importantly has a valuable network effect due to their collaboration features. It is in Google's best interest to encourage you to rely on their proprietary services instead of offering you alternatives that allow you to switch provider easily. Addition…
"people who know what Markdown is" overlaps very much with "people who have to use google docs for work but would prefer a consistent editing experience". Basically every dev I know has to use either teams/sharepoint/office or google docs, but most are also more comfortable with using markdown and use it for technical docs. I'd love to have a google docs option of creating a "simple doc", that is backed by markdown a…
> Basically every dev I know has to use either teams/sharepoint/office or google docs
I think there is another sizable set which heavily uses wiki. At my work, most people use it (a very small set of people use SharePoint for mainly PowerPoint or formatting heavy docs).
Re: No Markdown support in Google Drive after all these years
#30Simple: if you make your documents in Markdown, you won't be making them in Google Docs. Stuff made in Google Docs is sticky, increases your dependence on Google, and importantly has a valuable network effect due to their collaboration features. It is in Google's best interest to encourage you to rely on their proprietary services instead of offering you alternatives that allow you to switch provider easily. Addition…
'Additionally, the "people who know what Markdown is but also like trusting Google with their files" demographic is vanishingly small and not who Drive is targeting at all.' <--this 200%
It's just not true at all. Knowing/using markdown doesn't make you some Richard Stallmann type.