We could all be archivists

Great piece from Chase McCoy:

The rise of graph and database-like features in popular tools like Notion or Obsidian is a sign that the simple filesystem has failed us. And that failure has pushed us towards other solutions which require sacrificing ownership of our data.

If an average consumer wanted to organize information like they might in Notion while maintaining ownership and storing their data locally, I literally do not know of a solution that doesn’t involve administrating a database. That’s crazy, right?

I agree. That is crazy.

Our computers should be databases! We should be able to script them, access them using browser APIs, browse them via a first party application, etc. They should accrue data and knowledge over the course of our lifetimes, becoming more useful as we use them. They should be ours, something we can control and back up and preserve long after we’re gone.

Yes. This is exactly what I want.