*This is* Platformer*, a newsletter on the intersection of Silicon Valley and democracy from Casey Newton and Zoë Schiffer.* [*Sign up here*](https://www.platformer.news/)*.* --- Today let’s step outside the news cycle and turn our attention toward a topic I’m deeply invested in but only rarely write about: productivity platforms. For decades now, software tools have promised to make working life easier. But on one critical dimension — their ability to improve our thinking — they don’t seem to be making much progress at all. Meanwhile, the arrival of generative artificial intelligence could make the tools we use more powerful than ever — or they could turn out to be just another mirage. To understand where things went wrong, I want to focus on the humble note-taking app: the place where, for so many of us, thinking begins. **I.** Earlier this week I read a story about farmers. “America’s Farmers Are Bogged Down by Data,” read the headline on [Belle Lin’s story](https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-farmers-are-bogged-down-by-data-524f0a4d) in the *Wall Street Journal*. I thought to myself: *You and me both, farmer!* And I read the piece. Over the past decade, farmers have been offered all manner of software tools to analyze and manage their crops. In general, though, the more software that farmers use, the more they find themselves overwhelmed by data that the tools collect. “We’re collecting so much data that you’re almost paralyzed with having to analyze it all,” one farmer told the *Journal*. As a journalist, I’ve never collected as much data as I do now. The collapse of Twitter has me browsing four or five text-based social feeds a day, scanning for news and thoughtful conversation.