> People are naturally hung up on it because why use a projection which is useful for navigation in a world history class or as a background image in a news cas

> People are naturally hung up on it because why use a projection which is useful for navigation in a world history class or as a background image in a news cast or as a decoration on the wall? Are world history classes favoring Mercator? Are newscasts using Mercator in background images? Are wall maps using primarily Mercator? (These may have differing answers!) As a kid I often encountered oval‐shaped world maps which obviously weren’t Mercator (most likely Robinson or Winkel tripel). And road maps of the United States had curved borders, not straight borders, so those obviously weren’t Mercator either (possibly Alders). And I had globes both at home and at school. So while Mercator is certainly common, and it’s worth explaining tradeoffs in map projection especially in an educational context, I question whether it’s actually as universal as people here are saying. > We should be using other projections! Are we not?