Comment by jrmg

> Reading all these reasons sounds like defeat to me.

Agreed.

I never really understood the big issue with these. Systems need to be flexible enough to compensate for clock drift between devices already. On cheap devices like IOT devices (called out in this memo for their lack of capabilities) clocks diverge _all the time_ because cheap timing crystals aren’t great.

Even on expensive desktop PCs, audio and video hardware clocks diverge enough that compensation is required just to watch a YouTube video with the audio synchronized with video all the way to the end, and that’s without Bluetooth devices and the like inserting even more clocks into the system.

If our systems can’t cope with smearing a leap second in either direction every now and then, something is wrong.