[PeterisP]

I think the key point here is that for the vast majority of knowledge workers their knowledge work isn't really supposed to result in "published knowledge product" ever, and lack of such a product doesn't imply that they're ineffective since they can be wildly successful at their goals anyway, since why would their goals include producing such a product?

IMHO people taking notes for personal reasons (or building personal knowledge bases just as external memory for their personal expertise) far outnumber people who do that with the intent to compile those notes in some knowledge product for others.

Sure, some people take notes for a book or build a knowledge base that they'll summarize for others in a course or essay(s). But people with such intent are few, so these aren't the central applications of such tools, the stereotypical knowledge workers - like lawyers, doctors, engineers - all mostly apply their knowledge (including digital notes) not to produce or publish something but rather to solve a problem or provide an informed answer, and equating all this "non-producing" knowledge work to intellectual procrastination is quite insulting.