[rayiner]

Nah, it's just that most people function based on intuitive, rather than precise, models of how the world works. They have trouble telling millions of gallons apart from billions of gallons. But they were taught through childhood not to leave the water running while brushing their teeth. So the concept of data centers wasting water is intuitively persuasive to them.

I actually have a great deal of respect for the average person. Most of the time, the intuitive model of the world is very good at getting workable answers. But it completely falls apart when something is outside the universe of what people deal with on a day-to-day basis. Try asking the people in your family what the profit margin of a grocery store is. People might go to grocery stores all the time and know exactly how to comparison shop to optimize their spend. But most actually have no idea about the numbers involved at each step of the supply chain. Trying to explain inflation to people over the last few years has been literal hell, because virtually nobody understands the differences between price levels and the first and second derivatives thereof.