The fact that many people are surprised when they find out that "whoa; 2003, that's like 17 years ago" only pushes this idea. It probably depends on your goal,

The fact that many people are surprised when they find out that "whoa; 2003, that's like 17 years ago" only pushes this idea. It probably depends on your goal, though. Whether you want to know "the (relative) age of something", or "the point in time of some event". I think most often the first is the usecase, which is probably why most projects choose that.