[Semiapies]

I don't think you're wrong about what drives a lot of people to buy this stuff, but I also don't think these products are without value.

I'd agree that there's some potential value for the right people, and I definitely agree in doing whatever makes your process work. If you work best emailing yourself passages you bang on out your phone on the train, curling up by a window, at a computer with no network or games, sitting at a desk with no random objects to fiddle with, running WordStar in a DOS box, writing with pen and paper—that's all good. (I myself use Emacs; low distraction, so long as I don't open a web page or play Tetris or whatever in that window.)

But, I think that's distinct from how these products are generally marketed, which has been more on the exercise machine or gym membership model: aimed at the people who won't use them. Some people will use them, but they aren't the target. Freewrite was always marketed fetishisticly, going back to when it was "Hemingwrite". Low-distraction word processors harped on how "beautiful" the program looked as much as the minimization of distractions. They're more about provoking the aspiration to write rather than selling a tool for the job.