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What is the reason for using mebi and gibi instead of GB and MB? 

Because that IS the correct dimensioning to be using for binary metrics.

MiB and GiB. Giving into marketing. If it makes people feel better, MB and GB is just short hand for MiB and GiB when talking about computers. It's impossible to have a power of 10 amount of data without an overly complicated and wasteful computer. Of course this isn't talking about networking, just addressable data.

When you're in the USA and someone says it's 100 degrees outside, don't assume they're using the metric system. Same difference.

The only good argument, which is pretty good, is too many people don't recognize the difference between MB and Mb and complain their Steam download is only going 4MB/s on their 32Mb/s connection. I think this falls under people needing to understand the difference between diesel and gasoline. If you're going to own a car, learn the basics.

MB and GB is just short hand for MiB and GiB when talking about computers.

No,

MB = 10^6 (Base 10 numbers, the Decimal system)

MiB = 2^20 (Base 2 numbers, the Binary system)

The two are not interchangeable.

[quote="ciaobaby"]
Because that IS the correct dimensioning to be using for binary metrics.
[/quote]

Ok so in all circumstances, what I thought was a megabyte is actually a mebi? Like with harddrives?

(I am aware of the difference between megabytes and megabits)

what I thought was a megabyte is actually a mebi? Like with harddrives?

Yep.

Hard drives are often referring to their formatted capacity in base-10, but their raw capacity is larger.
So a "1 TB" hard drive may show barely over 1,000,000,000,000 bytes capacity but the raw/unformatted capacity could be closer or even over 1 TiB.

Solid State Drives (SSDs) often have hidden capacity that's only used if/when visible flash memory areas "wear out", so their raw capacity can be >5% their usable formatted capacity as well.