Hacker News Reader

Comment by papsosouid | Hacker News Reader

>“Why do you all call your customers ‘users’?”

We don't, we call our users "users". They are the product we are selling to our customers. We call our customers "customers". Why is he taking such a stupid question as a call to change the way he thinks instead of just answering it?

>No one wants to be thought of as a “user”

Excuse me? I am perfectly content with being thought of as a user of site X when I am a user of site X. I am not a customer of google's, I am a user of their search engine. I am not a customer of HNs, I am a user. If you don't care about your users, then fix that problem, don't try to pretend the word is the problem.

View on HN

@Jack's article was in the context of Square. At Square, the merchants are the customers, and the merchant's customers are probably classified as the users. In that context, referring to merchants as users might be less precise.

When talking about twitter, I'm absolutely not their customer. I'm their user, and totally agree with your assessment.

One thing absent from @jack's article was a definition of customer:

cus·tom·er/ˈkəstəmər/ Noun: A person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or other business.

> the merchant's customers are probably classified as the users.

I believe his subdivision of "customers" into "sellers" and "buyers" was to solve that issue - "sellers" are the merchants, and "buyers" and the sellers' customers. It all makes sense to me, but you're right - only in a context where you actually have customers

His name is Jack, not @Jack. The question was not posed to him in the context of his specific business, but rather the entire software industry. And his bizarre reaction to it was to spew idiocy at the entire software industry, not just his specific business.

>No one wants to be thought of as a “user”

I don't want to be considered customer when I'm in front of my computer. Buyer, maybe when I'm just paying for something, but never customer. It has so many bad connotations. Calling me user emphasizes my actions as an independent agent, but calling me customer emphasizes the fact that I'm perceived as a bag of cash to drain.

I agree, although as with many other things, our distinctions are not always obvious to people whose expertise lies elsewhere. I think it's goofy that my 401k plan is a "product" to financial guys, who have a dozen other names for money as well. I try to be accurate and use the right term, and not to get offended when someone uses something it differently.

User is no more confusing due to drug connotations than visitor is due to alien connotations or client is to prostitution. We can find nefarious or suggestive inferences in nearly every word if we want.

  user - someone who is using the system
  visitor - someone who came to a site (web, B&M, etc).
  viewer - someone who saw something
  account - a long term relationship with a person or group
  customer - someone who is intending to spend money
  buyer - someone who is actually spending money
  client - someone who is the target of a service

So you can fall into a number of categories here at once, and it's more important that you're accurate when expressing your idea than to simplify it. Marketing is all about increasing the numbers of a certain one of these, often by converting them from another.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com