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In my opinion the most important factor by far is avoiding ambiguity. This means sucking up to the binary prefixes and using them in every scenario possible. A

In my opinion the most important factor by far is avoiding ambiguity. This means sucking up to the binary prefixes and using them in every scenario possible. A lot of people don't like how they sound, and would like for the standard prefixes to have one meaning, but the reality of the state of the world is such that you will create ambiguity if you don't use the binary prefixes.

dividedbyzero 6y ago
In my experience, they're just as likely to be read as a weird typo of mega/giga as not and I've seen SSDs advertised using the wrong prefixes a lot, so there's another layer of ambiguity we wouldn't have if those prefixes had been picked with relative laypeople in mind. Even people who should know about these use 1024 for a kilobyte, and I usually add (1024^3) or something like that if ambiguity is a potential issue. I've been burnt before by trusting that gibi will be understood. My particular set of anecdata would strongly suggest it's not a very successful standard so far. That "nearest power of two to decimal kilo/mega/giga" is a weird concept in itself doesn't help, and the chosen prefixes are completely non-obvious and alien to me and apparently others as well. I don't think it's going to take hold anytime soon. Besides, if ambiguity is all there is to worry about, just use 2^30 bytes. No ambiguity at all (I believe) – but it may be a lot less effective in actual communication in lots of situations.