* Yeah, I read the article. Regardless of the IEC's noble attempt, in all my years of working with people and computers I've never heard anyone actually pronounce MiB (or write it out in full) as "mebibyte".
It doesn't matter. "kilo" means 1000. People are free to use it wrong if they wish.
“Kilo” can mean what we want in different contexts and it’s really no more or less correct as long as both parties understand and are consistent in their usage to each other.
> All words are made up.
Yes, and the made up words of kilo and kibi were given specific definitions by the people who made them up:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
> […] as long as both parties understand and are consistent in their usage to each other.
And if they don't? What happens then?
Perhaps it would be easier to use the words definitions as they are set up in standards and regulations so context is less of an issue.
Good for them. People make up their own definitions for words all the time. Some of those people even try to get others to adopt their definition. Very few are ever successful. Because language is about communicating shared meaning. And there is a great deal of cultural inertia behind the kilo = 2^10 definition in computer science and adjacent fields.
Can’t use a dictionary, those bastards try to get us to adopt their definitions.