Reclassifying the 'Consumer'

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dan Gillmor <dgillmor () sjmercury com>
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2003 06:30:44 -0800
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Our "consumer" discussion...

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/000830.shtml#0008
30

    March 05, 2003 
Reclassifying the 'Consumer'
€ posted by Dan Gillmor 06:23 AM
€ permanent link to this item

My friend Jerry Michalski, a notable thinker about how digital technology is
changing the world, has long loathed the word "consumer" -- calling it
grossly inaccurate and demeaning description of human beings in a market
economy. I agree entirely.

I tend to say that I'm a customer, not a consumer. Customers are not simply
eating what's on the table and sending money back to the companies that
provide it. Customers are participants, first, in a negotiation or
conversation with sellers.

Yet "customer" doesn't fully capture what we are in today's economy, either.
It's a hard word, too limited, as is "user" or other words that acknowledge
the increasingly complicated relationships between sellers and buyers (even
when no money is being exchanged) in the Internet Age.

Another notable thinker, computer scientist Dave Farber, was chatting with
me about this notion the other day. We both concluded that we need a new
word.

You can help. Let's replace "consumer" with something more meaningful. Send
me e-mail (dgillmor () sjmercury com)[ cc dave () farber net] and I'll post the
responses here.

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