Easy? Markdown was based on people already using "" for bulleted lists, /slashes/ for italics and bold* in plaintext email. People were writing valid Markdown

Easy? Markdown was based on people already using "" for bulleted lists, /slashes/ for italics and bold* in plaintext email. People were writing valid Markdown before it was invented. It doesn't easier than that. No one ever has intuitively written Dumbdown.