[nicbou]

There doesn't need to be a compromise. You can have both if you keep your data in multiple formats. Storage is cheap and text files are small.

My timeline thing [0] keeps the original archives, stores the timeline entries in a database, and exports them hourly as JSON + files. If the code stops working or the database crashes, the files are still there. The automated backups are there too. No information is lost.

However, the richness is not lost in the process. This timeline has geolocation history, notebook scans and a bunch of other things that don't really translate to plain text.

The most important difference is that I can write to my timeline from my phone. Managing text files across devices is quite troublesome by comparison. If I want plain text out of it, I can write a new Destination that pipes entries to plain text files or to a fax machine.

[0] https://nicolasbouliane.com/projects/timeline