I've always been a journaler, but I made the move to do part of it digitally after reading Derek Sivers' practice a few years ago.

If you dig in the coments, you'll see that Derek even uses the idea of linking, in a non technical way ("go see ThoughtsOn.txt for today"). Obsidian users with their backlinks may laugh, but part of the power is in how portable that statement is regardless of software

It's interesting to consider that the most impactful features of a computer are so basic. The ability to search a large volume of text quickly. To organize. And to store it all compactly. Everything else on top of that is sugar and risking tight-coupling to a vendor.