But to answer your main question, markdown is used for writing text which can then be converted to HTML, PDF, etc, etc. It's used just to format things. org can be used in that way, and it might feel better/worse depending on what you feel about the choices used for various formatting styles.
However the big gain of org is that you can use it to format dynamic tables, handle todo-lists, have deadlines, recurring tasks, etc, etc. It makes no sense to compare org-files with markdown-files. It's like saying "I use notepad how does Excel help you do more?" - they do different thigns.
Now, much like excel, most people don't do everythign with org, but they can if they want to. It is extraordinarily flexible, and can be extended with custom lisp code if necessary.
I track rental properties with an org-document for each property, and I get per-year profit/loss statements in a neat format with graphs too. You can't do that with markdown.
But to answer your main question, markdown is used for writing text which can then be converted to HTML, PDF, etc, etc. It's used just to format things. org can be used in that way, and it might feel better/worse depending on what you feel about the choices used for various formatting styles.
However the big gain of org is that you can use it to format dynamic tables, handle todo-lists, have deadlines, recurring tasks, etc, etc. It makes no sense to compare org-files with markdown-files. It's like saying "I use notepad how does Excel help you do more?" - they do different thigns.
Now, much like excel, most people don't do everythign with org, but they can if they want to. It is extraordinarily flexible, and can be extended with custom lisp code if necessary.
I track rental properties with an org-document for each property, and I get per-year profit/loss statements in a neat format with graphs too. You can't do that with markdown.