Google's Docs dilemma

Take the humble “document” as an example. For decades, document editing programs like word processors effectively emulated a printed sheet of paper, onto which the user typed with an emulated typewriter. Other software tools like spreadsheets did better, managing to escape complete skeuomorphism in favor of an infinite canvas. Notion is another goo... See more

Collaborative editors like Google Docs allow people to work on a rich-text document in real-time, which is convenient when users want to immediately see each others’ changes. However, sometimes people prefer a more asynchronous collaboration style, where they can work on a private copy of a document for a while and share their updates later. The al... See more

Today’s document tools aren’t built for discussion. We’ve seen so many improvements in how you can write docs like collaborative editing, relational tables, fancy blocks, and more. These features are powerful but they incentivize us to polish and present our ideas. We should spend less time writing documents and more time discussing the ideas.