These users want familiarity, and get false simplicity / silo-lock-in. I'm not fond of giving emacs to everyone anymore, but even the simple fact of showing that simple text can be transformed into formatted beauty can open their mind.
Otherwise, IMO, they don't understand they have a computer wanting to compute for them, they see a weird typewriter simulator that they should appease as much as possible otherwise that god might crash taking their hard (because the software is obscure) work down the drain.
Now I also find markdown good enough. Headers, paragraphs, lists, quotes, links... Gruber's page list 10 kinds, easy to remember for anyone; balanced, minimal and generic document feature set.
Otherwise, IMO, they don't understand they have a computer wanting to compute for them, they see a weird typewriter simulator that they should appease as much as possible otherwise that god might crash taking their hard (because the software is obscure) work down the drain.
Now I also find markdown good enough. Headers, paragraphs, lists, quotes, links... Gruber's page list 10 kinds, easy to remember for anyone; balanced, minimal and generic document feature set.