It was an easy way to use an existing plain-text document where HTML was expected. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-html-spec-02.txt#section-14

It was an easy way to use an existing plain-text document where HTML was expected. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-html-spec-02.txt#section-14.2.3 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-html-spec-0... The PLAINTEXT element was replaced by the LISTING element (which was itself deprecated in HTML 3.2): https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1866#section-5.5.2.1 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1866#section-5.5.2....