The only real problem is when 10-base prefixes are used to represent 2^10-base values (or vice versa, if that happens). Everything else is just preference, as quite clearly evident here:<p>&quot;even when dealing with non-technical customers&quot;<p>Bruce, your implicit assumption is that non-technical customers actually care about units in absolute terms. They don&#x27;t, that&#x27;s why some devices (e.g. Nintendo consoles) deal with &quot;blocks&quot; instead of megabytes or mebibytes. Non-technical users care about relative terms. Whether these are represented in 2- or 10-based units, ferrets or chimichangas is irrelevant. My mother wants to know whether data on her 2GB pendrive can be stored on HDD with 20GB space. 2&lt;20, so the answer is yes, case closed.<p>OS (or ecosystem in a broader sense) should be consistent, that&#x27;s all there is to it (and since it isn&#x27;t and won&#x27;t be, it should at least be honest). Whether 1000 or 1024 &quot;makes more sense&quot;, to &quot;some or all&quot; parts of the computer &quot;visible or not&quot; is entirely a matter of taste. &quot;Makes sense&quot; is as meaningless metric as &quot;is natural&quot;. Everyone can (and will) twist it any way they like by providing various examples that adhere to their preference.