system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why were bits the powers of 2 and not something like 10?
gpt
The top comments explain what a bit is, but not why it is base 2, and not some other arbitrary number. In transistors, the power is either on or off. 1 or 0. In order to have a 3 bit or greater computing system, you would need to measure *how much* electrical charge the transistor holds, as opposed to whether or not it has a charge. While that in and of itself wouldn’t be too difficult, as transistors degrade overtime, those partial electrical charges (that you’d need to accurately measure to determine what value it holds), would become inaccurate. It’s much easier to read on/off, than try and read partial electrical charges. 

EDIT: as several comments have pointed out, it is not simply on or off, but low charge and high charge. Think of a full cup of water. It might not be 100% full to the brim, but you can still call it full. This is on.

Now dump out the water. There are still some drops and dribbles of water, however you can say for all intents and purposes that the cup is empty (off). Yes, there’s still some “charge” in there, but for our purposes, we can call that empty.