"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in message
Because a 'unit' is a much more useable measure for that much volume.
Much easier to look at a bill and see "oh, I used 3 units this month
instead of the usual 1' rather than seeing the volume in thousands of
gallons.

Same reason some items are measured/sold by 'hundred weight' or 'tons'
vice pounds.

Harry K


I guess I'm not a big fan of dumbing things down for certain types of
people.

Not so much dumbing down, but ease of reading/billing. My home meter
registers hundreds of gallons. Our meters at work read cubic feet. You
need less space to print out in hundreds rather than individual cubic feet.
Many items I buy are priced by the thousand, but most of these are items
that cost pennies and bought in large quantities or we'd be into four to six
decimal places.