Ask HN: Why do Bitcoin people write stuff in “White Paper” instead of HTML?

[volaski]

I've been wondering about this for quite some time. I know Satoshi Nakamoto the founder posted his first Bitcoin document as a PDF, but I am not sure what the reason for continuing this tradition is. HTML documents are much easier to share, more portable, etc. Is there some reason I'm not aware of?

[benologist]

A "White Paper" is like a report, whereas PDF and HTML are just technologies used to display it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_paper