Friday, March 10, 2006

Tim, lets's make a deal...

Tim Bray writes:
I heard this over and over again at ETech, and it sticks in my craw like a sour lump of food gone bad: “User generated content”. Feh. I am not a user, I’m a person. And you know, I don’t put in all this time and work and obsession to be a cog in anyone’s business model. Just saying.
And I'm with him on that as long as we also get to go after my pet peeve: consumer. Everywhere I turn, I'm called a ^%&**&^*&^ consumer. Like my sole function was to suck up all of the products. I'm especially angry at this when it's used by politicians. I'm a citizen and I don't want them to forget it. Depending on the context I can be a voter, customer, individual or person. Maybe I'm a purchaser or a creator today. Tomorrow I'll be a stakeholder or a client. Just stop using that overused meaningless word: consumer.