Hating on Mercator is just pavlovian concern trolling at this point (it's the first thing people learn in their GIS classes, whatever). People are so obsessed w

Hating on Mercator is just pavlovian concern trolling at this point (it's the first thing people learn in their GIS classes, whatever). People are so obsessed with conservation of area, it's cringey, Freud would have something to say about that. Maps should always neatly establish a frame of reference. Unless you need to actually take out a ruler and measure a thingie of of it, projections don't matter all that much. The mercator map is an excellent world map: land masses nicely proportioned, straight reference lines that don't clutter, north is up thank god, no weird bulges, just rectangular, you know, like a page in a book or a website. It's just a really good world map. The haters are wrong 90% of the time.