I'll drop this idea again: a pure Markdown version of the web. The Web 0.5 if you will. No fancy markup, lay-outs, popups, GDPR notices, or scary tracking. Just content. Wouldn't that be nice?
I'm suggesting Markdown over plain text to still allow things like headings, emphasis and other semantic markup (and images of course). A subset of HTML would also do. HTML 1.0?
@zef Have you seen #Gemini?
https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
Its aims are similar to what you describe, though it pares down even more on the allowed markup. (No span-level markup within a paragraph, clients/users decide whether to automatically show image links, etc)
But I love it! It's a breath of fresh air, and I use it for my note-taking:
gemini://notes.dcreager.net/
https://notes.dcreager.net/
Zef
Douglas Creager