Comment by ASalazarMX
8 hours ago
I guess you're used to standard billions (a million millions). A US billion would certainly suffer from losing hundreds of millions, you're talking about a double-digit percent.
8 hours ago
I guess you're used to standard billions (a million millions). A US billion would certainly suffer from losing hundreds of millions, you're talking about a double-digit percent.
10^9 is the standard definition of a billion, it's very wrong to call 10^12 a "standard billion." You can say "long scale billion" if you want to refer to the definitively non-standard 10^12 billion.
To quibble/add-nuance: The words have diverged into a false-friend [0] situation. It looks like the same word, but the correct/standard meaning depends on which language is being used at the time.
If someone is writing English and puts "billion" for 10^12, that's a translation error, much like writing "my grandfather became pregnant when he realized he'd locked the keys inside the car." (Instead of "embarrassed.")
Conversely, if I wrote a French or German sentence and put "billion" for 10^9, then I'd be the one making the translation mistake.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend
It's a shame as we used the correct definition for almost 300 years until the US pushed everyone to switch to their system.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/billion
I would vote to revert it.
I doubt they are saying any services out there have 1,000,000,000,000 users.