[russellbeattie]

We need a Rich Text Standard akin to Unicode. It's truly absurd that we can universally read and write emojis with variable skin color across all platforms, but I can't send bold or italic text.

If can use emojis in my terminal text editor - even in a Markdown document itself - why the hell can't I bold or italicize?? We desperately need to fix this insanity.

Markdown by itself is: Headings, bold, italic, lists, blockquote, code, horizontal rule, link and image. That's it. Everything else is some sort of custom addition like tables.

Surely in 2026 we can figure out how to make this a universal standard.

I truly despise Markdown. I'd say about 25% of my posts on HN is me ranting about how much I hate it. This has mostly just lowered my karma, but that's OK. I'm not wrong, it sucks.