Wow, is this even a genuine question?
I can use a world scale map to illustrate or explain some geographic point I make in a presentation. I can use it as a quick reminder of the geography related to some current news, etc.
If the mariners want to continue using Mercator, who's stopping them?
As far as the news usecase goes I also don't really see how checking world maps would be applicable outside the news in question being consumed as entertainment, where my previous point on entertainment boiling down to personal pleasure and being fungible still stands.
> their (almost certainly wrong) intuition
So because some people can't use some information well, we should deny that information to all?
> I also don't really see how checking world maps would be applicable outside the news in question being consumed as entertainment,
Is this even an argument? I do not consume news purely for entertainment, neither do those in my circle
The argument isn't that using information is bad, it's that world scale maps are so shit at conveying usable information that there is no point in picking one projection over another (or any really) outside niche settings like sailing. Better to just use other non-map representations of the relevant information at that point.
> I do not consume news purely for entertainment, neither do those in my circle
Here my point was not that all news is entertainment, but rather that news one needs to reference a world scale map to make sense of in all likelihood isn't impacting anywhere near where one is living, nor near anyone amongst family or friends living abroad (hopefully one would remember the closest relevant neighbours), so those pieces are basically entertainment for the masses. (The assumption being that local impact to where the media is would be what's highlighted if there is some, hence the non-need for checking world scale maps in the event that the piece of news is impactful to the individual. So the pieces one feels like checking where on the globe are actually happening, one is in all likelihood checking because one is personally amused by finding out, not because it is useful beyond emotional gratification. And again no projections one could choose from would change the non-impact on the actions/decisions of the consumer of that piece of news.)