[gcr]

Most users interpret "Export" as an operation that lossily finalizes a project from its native representation to a common third-party format. "Export" is one-way, "Save As" is bidirectional.

- Audacity "Saves" audio projects to its native .aup, but can "Export" them to .mp3 or .wav

- Photoshop "Saves" .psd files, but "Exports" them to .jpeg

- Gimp "Saves" an .xcf, but "Exports" to .png

- Apple Notes "Saves" notes to its own sqlite database, but "Exports" to txt or pdf via a menu item

This technically satisfies your comment above, which is why we speak of moved goalposts.

It would be great if apple notes could convert your note library to ENEX or a .zip file of HTML items.

[eviks]

This is not a project, and your examples are just the same biased multimedia project example, which is very much not rich text

Export/import is about comm/direction, it does not (technically, just as you like it) imply loss. Also, technically we're discussing a comment from a specific person here, not from "most users".

(Joplin also uses sqlite database for storage, that's another very interesting internal detail)

So even technically you're wrong, but more importantly, you're missing the forest for the technicality tree