[pif]

> The wish is for "kilobyte" to have one meaning.

Which is the reality. "kilobyte" means "1000 bytes". There's no possible discussion over this fact.

Many people have been using it wrong for decades, but its literal value did not change.

[marssaxman]

That is a prescriptivist way of thinking about language, which is useful if you enjoy feeling righteous about correctness, but not so helpful for understanding how communication actually works. In reality-reality, "kilobyte" may mean either "1000 bytes" or "1024 bytes", depending on who is saying it, whom they are saying it to, and what they are saying it about.

You are free to intend only one meaning in your own communication, but you may sometimes find yourself being misunderstood: that, too, is reality.

[deathanatos]

It's not even really prescriptivist thinking… "Kilobyte" to mean both 1,000 B & 1,024 B is well-established usage, particularly dependent on context (with the context mostly being HDD manufacturers who want to inflate their drive sizes, and … the abomination that is the 1.44 MB diskette…). But a word can be dependent on context, even in prescriptivist settings.

E.g., M-W lists both, with even the 1,024 B definition being listed first. Wiktionary lists the 1,024 B definition, though it is tagged as "informal".

As a prescriptivist myself I would love if the world could standardize on kilo = 1000, kibi = 1024, but that'll likely take some time … and the introduction of the word to the wider public, who I do not think is generally aware of the binary prefixes, and some large companies deciding to use the term, which they likely won't do, since companies are apt to always trade for low-grade perpetual confusion over some short-term confusion during the switch.

[pif]

I understand the usual meaning, but I use the correct meaning when precision is required.

[bigstrat2003]

In computers, "kilobyte" has a context dependent meaning. It has been thus for decades. It does not only mean 1000 bytes.

[pif]

I understand the usual meaning, but I use the correct meaning when precision is required.

[zephen]

Knuth thought the international standard promulgated naming (kibibyte) was DOA.

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news99.html

And he was right.

Context is important.

"K" is an excellent prefix for 1024 bytes when working with small computers, and a metric shit ton of time has been saved by standardizing on that.

When you get to bigger units, marketing intervenes, and, as other commenters have pointed out, we have the storage standard of MB == 1000 * 1024.

But why is that? Certainly it's because of the marketing, but also it's because KB has been standardized for bytes.

> Which is the reality. "kilobyte" means "1000 bytes". There's no possible discussion over this fact.

You couldn't be more wrong. Absolutely nobody talks about 8K bytes of memory and means 8000.

[happytoexplain]

The line between "literal" and "colloquial" becomes blurred when a word consisting of strongly-defined parts ("kilo") gets used in official, standardized contexts with a different meaning.

In fact, this is the only case I can think of where that has ever happened.

[pif]

"colloquial" has no place in official contexts. I'll happily talk about kB and MB without considering the small difference between 1000 and 1024, but on a contract "kilo" will unequivocally mean 1000, unless explicitely defined as 1024 for the sake of that document.