I think you might be under a mistaken assumption here, because I don't think that this is factual.

The only way I could see your misunderstanding is if you think the quantity of whitespace in markdown tables is important, which it isn't.

This is a working md table and it's not harder to make then the equivalent html version

  |Header one|header two|
  |---|---|
  |Column value 1|column value one|
  |value 2|value two|

Wherever what's preferable is another story though.

Personally I dislike writing plain html, and would always prefer another template language to generate it, but that's just preference.

Though for the record, you should bee able to escape newlines with a backslash. That admittedly makes the md table into a total disaster, so not suggesting it as an actual option.

Much easier, I'd say.

    <table>
      <tr>
        <th>Header one</th>
        <th>header two</th>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>Column value 1</td>
        <td>column value one</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>value two</td>
        <td>value two</td>
      </tr>
    </table>

Also note that you haven't actually done the same as my example.

You're missing <thead> and <tbody>

It's easier to remember the html tags and to see if they are correct.

In markdown I have to remember the weird punctuation and get the | counts exactly correct.

For making something bold, there's low friction in wrapping it in asterisks compared to the HTML version. It's fast, easy and works.

For making a link, the friction is higher because you have to remember the link/text order, and the link/text punctuation. There's a what, one in four chance of getting it right if you haven't memorised it? It always trips me up and I have to go and look it up.

Whereas a link in HTML is pretty much the same format as everything else in HTML.

I think Markdown excels for short or limited things that consist of headings, lists and inline formatting, like blog-posts and comments and ReadMes, but I find it doesn't scale well.