Exactly. You can do it entirely with Cloudflare. Even if you limit yourself to what's available on the free tier, there's a surprisingly wide range of things you can build.

That is absolutely correct.

For applications requiring simultaneous writes from multiple programs (concurrency) or ACID transaction properties, using Markdown files as a substitute for a database is undoubtedly an anti-pattern and entails a risk of data corruption.

You're absolutely right ... and this is more for a personal database (the way most people use Notion).

Strictly we could have titled this: the markdown database pattern for small personal databases.

The point was that for personal use e.g. keeping a list of projects, or books etc this is perfect. Or even for maintaining this list on a website.

It isn't for multiple simultaneous writes

Notion is blurring the line and trying to get people to build workflows and applications with notion as "the database"...

The weak yen has certainly made Japan feel much cheaper for foreign visitors in recent years. But even before that, the general price level was lower than in many Western cities.

Also, if you're trying to save money as a local, moving just 3–4 train stops away often makes a noticeable difference in rent or hotel prices.

Wouldn't it also be difficult for Grok to monetize through ads like OpenAI or enterprise customers like Anthropic?

That is certainly true. There is a subtle difference between building a company that becomes attractive to acquirers and building one with the primary goal of being acquired. If the latter drives your decisions, you may optimize for acquisition criteria rather than customer value, which can take you away from PMF.

In that case, even if using a service violates its terms of service, distilling its AI output is not necessarily illegal under the law.