The thing is, that’s all relatively recent in computing terms. For the vast majority of computing history it’s been 1024^n because that’s how the hardware works

The thing is, that’s all relatively recent in computing terms. For the vast majority of computing history it’s been 1024^n because that’s how the hardware works — you can’t have 1000^n in a binary system where bytes are multiples of 8. All the 1000^n values you get are where the raw value in bytes is taken and then divided by powers of 1000 but that leads to values that are technically not accurate (eg values that are not addressable). And here lies the problem, before HDD manufacturers decided to change things up, computer science was already standardised on using 1024^n. Sure there was some outliers in network theory but it was pretty easy because if you needed a precise value then you knew it was 1024^n and if you just wanted an approximate value you could still divide by 1000 in your head. It worked, everyone understood it and everyone was happy. This whole “1000^n is more human friendly” only appears so because we now have multiple interpretations and people without a tech background making decisions about it. But frankly, if you can’t wrap your head around 1024^n then you’re already in the group of users who honestly don’t need to worry about the precision of getting the scaling right. Those who it does matter for honestly find 1024^n easier.