Probably sheer magnitude, no? The Google results for "how much power data centers use" show numbers between 1% and 3% (it's similar numbers whether I specify gl

Probably sheer magnitude, no? The Google results for "how much power data centers use" show numbers between 1% and 3% (it's similar numbers whether I specify global or just the US). Let's assume that's at least somewhat accurate. If we believe both statistics, then crypto mining uses roughly as much electricity as all data centers. But data centers drive so many different industries and benefit people in countless ways- entertainment (as you mentioned), financial, education, communication, etc, etc. Crypto is like. Neat? There's some people who benefit greatly from it, sure. But broadly compare how different society would look if crypto didn't exist (not different at all, I'd think?) to how different it would look if data centers didn't exist. Looking at it that way, it's crazy that they at all use similar amounts of electricity.