Commas would have helped a bit, that way you could at least just count the commas or the more visible blocks they space out, instead of counting each set of 3 digits one digit at a time.
There are more pragmatic ways to write numbers, though, depending on the need for specificity. If the lower digits are insignificant, simply writing 4.81 billion is easy, or 4.81e9.
That I have to go through and count the digits before I know how to say the number aloud (4 billion…) seems like a flaw with how we write numbers.
Commas would have helped a bit, that way you could at least just count the commas or the more visible blocks they space out, instead of counting each set of 3 digits one digit at a time.
There are more pragmatic ways to write numbers, though, depending on the need for specificity. If the lower digits are insignificant, simply writing 4.81 billion is easy, or 4.81e9.