The claim that Folgezettel (FZ) leads to this friction is just correct on surface level.
- If you depend your ability to assign an ID to a note on going through the branches of FZ you impose that said friction.
- However, the placing is not important. If there are two possibilities to integrate a note you just chose one and then link to the other place.
- Luhmann: “With this technique it is not important where you place a new note. When there are multiple options, you can solve the problem by placing the note wherever you want and create references to capture other possible contexts.”
- Not being important means that it is not creating value to decide how to place a note. If you act on the premise that the placing is not important, the friction is forcing you to engage with an aspect of the method that is not value creating and therefore imposing opportunity costs to you.
- FZ doesn’t force you and can’t force you to make a meaningful connection. There are just two possible ways to branch: Sibling or child. There are more than two possible types of relationships between old notes and new notes. Therefore, FZ is not powerful enough to actually capture the type of connection.
- FZ relationships need to be re-understood when you review them later. It is almost certain that you forget the vast majority of them if you are not working very frequently with your ZK or at least with certain areas of it.
- The FZ structure will grow to a high degree of complexity. If you want to work in a more orderly way with it the amount of necessary work and strain on your working memory will be high.
So, FZ does impose friction. But the assumed benefit of this friction is realized by working with your ZK anyhow:
- If you integrate a note into your ZK diligently, you spent quite some time browsing the already existing link structure of your ZK since it is part of how you navigate your Zettelkasten.
- If you use Structure Notes and integrate a note there, you have the opportunity to integrate the note very specific and meaningful. Meaningful means here: You describe the relationship between the note and the overarching structure explicitly.
- Theoretically, each Structure Notes is one way to access your entire ZK. Imagine a structure note that links to any other note. If you organize the links hierarchically, you created a complete FZ structure on one file. If you create another “total” structure note but make different decisions to place a note, you created a parallel FZ access structure. (Same notes, different FZ relations) The benefit of structure note is that it is malleable. If you are not satisfied by more choices, you can change them. FZ is permanent. You can’t work with FZ. When it’s done, it’s done.
It is not that FZ doesn’t produce any benefits. But there are other techniques and practices that produce more of the same type of benefits and more different benefits.
Practically speaking: Using FZ creates a hierarchical view, mostly on the left side of your screen. The view is hard-coded into the filename or an attribute. Structure notes (as the main alternative) create a view in the center of your screen (in the editor window).
Lüdecke writes for example:
Links or references do not emphasize the relationship between notes (ideas, content). The context of connections usually remains unclear due to arbitrary relationships. source
The very point I am making is that FZ are not providing meaningful context.
Wherever you read about FZ providing context you’ll encounter the claim that FZ does it. But the actual mechanism how it provides the context is either left out or proposed in foggy terms like “relationships of relationships”. (“Relationships of relationships” is, by the way, a technical term of Luhmann’s systems theory.)
Lüdecke is doing exactly that. Just stating that FZ does that.
The general fallacy all proponents are making I am aware of is the following:
- (1) FZ is an effect.
- (2) The effect is beneficial.
- (Therefore) FZ is beneficial.
It is a fallacy because the benefit of the effect needs to be established through the lens of opportunity costs and in isolation. Yes, FZ produces friction, which can be interpreted as “good friction” (eufriction). But to make the claim that this if beneficial, you need to base your claim on a comparison to other habits and techniques.
To give you an illustrating example:
There is not a single healthy nor unhealthy type of food. Is pizza healthy? Not, if you compare it with other options like self-prepared whole food meals. But if you are broke or stranded on an island, having a pizza (or even just a bucket of almost spoiled whipped cream) can be life-saving. This might be a controversial position, but being alive is more healthy than being ended by starvation.
Yet, people make all kinds of claims on the health properties without any contextual reasoning.
The same is true for FZ. The reasoning needs to be dialectic. But it isn’t.
You are making the very point about tags that I make about Folgezettel. 
FZ by themselves do not contain meaningful information since they just can establish that there is a connection but not the nature of the connection itself.
I am sure. In Lüdecke’s article, there is just the claim that FZ does this or that. There is no justification or exploration of the actual how FZ do that.
Other articles you’ll find in the internet lack the above-mentioned dialectic reasoning necessary to make claims on the benefits. (At least as I am aware of.)
The weakness of my position is: Since I am holding my position for a long time (more than a decade) and base it on my iterations of discussions and reasoning, chances are that I am reading selectively. So, if there is any dialectic reasoning about FZ, I am happy to engage with this topic once more.
So, my position is that FZ might be useful but pale in comparison to other techniques.
But if you like it, you like it.