alt Hacker NewsA utility meant for viewing data? I don't think you understand what a text editor is.
I'd agree that recent features feel a bit unnecessary, but it does need to edit and write files - including system ones (going through however that is authorised). You could sandbox a lot of apps with limited impact, but it would make a text editor really useless. Least privilege principles work best when you don't need many privileges.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say. You could always edit system files with notepad, that was something that the program always excelled at thanks to its simplicity in both how it looked and behaved. And i fail to see the new features as anything but useless bloat.