I would be surprised if, practically speaking, 8bits <> 1 byte for 99.99% of all general applications. My feeling is that the .01% can do the math so the other 99.99% don't have to.
Yeah but specifically for networking, error-detecting and error-correcting codes can make a byte at the app level > 8 bits on the wire, transparently. The capacity of the hardware is independent of that, so they talk in bauds.
