[i6ruce]

I do not understand why would anyone care about nanometers at all. There are power efficiency, performance, reliability, price/value characteristics that are more important to an average consumer than the lithography process size.

[tremon]

Because the node size used to be a reliable proxy for power efficiency, performance and price characteristics. That was true for decades, until the node size became so small that the quantum effects changed the game.

[ur-whale]

Because people like simple numbers.

Examples:

    - megapixels for cameras

    - MHz for CPU's (back in the days)

    - HP for cars

etc...