Words can mask as often as they reveal

"Corporations, government agencies and even consumers are tinkering with open-source software, which can be downloaded free from the Internet."
-Ross Wehner, "Linux, others are used behind the scenes" Denver Post, March 28, 2005

I've never liked the word consumer; it evinces mental images of passive bovine grazing. First of all, "customer" is far more respectful of the person with whom one does business. Secondly, it is somewhat misleading, since at the moment of economic transaction, it is hard to say whether the customer is consuming the fruits of the business' labor, or the business is consuming the fruits of the customer's labor.

Here we see how the word especially misleads. In open-source software, any tinkerers are not consumers but producers, innovators who will, if they are competent, actually add value to a thing.

I wonder whether the newspapers refer to their own subscribers as consumers? That's certainly not something one would do if one wishes to project the notion that newspaper readers are informed and active thinkers.