People have been called “users” for a long time; it’s a practical shorthand enforced by executives, founders, operators, engineers, and investors ad infinitum. Often, it is the right word to describe people who use software: a user is more than just a customer or a consumer. Sometimes a user isn’t even a person; corporate bots are known to run accounts on Instagram and other social media platforms, for example. But “users” is also unspecific enough to refer to just about everyone.
10 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 23 Apr
I think I first heard someone complaining about the term user maybe 15 years ago.
Maybe the term "user" needs to not only refer to humans. When I first heard objections they were more centered around making it sounds like they were drug users. The reality is we are learning that user is a pretty good label. Over the years it has occurred to me that many users behave like bots. Users that are indeed humans. What I mean is that they are behaving in very predictable and unnatural ways. Way a human in real life would not behave. So maybe user is the right term after all. I dunno.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @rtr 22 Apr
I think "user" conveys the right amount of information for its current use. Perhaps "end user" would be more appropriate.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @nym 22 Apr
Interesting, I've never thought about this. Should they be called operators or clients, or something similar?
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 23 Apr
I've never liked the term "user" either. It's always sounded kind of inhumane to me.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 23 Apr
User reminds me of the term used in TRON.
Anyone watch the first one?
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30 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 23 Apr
Interesting. My first reaction is "who cares", but the crux of the argument is that we're lumping human users and bots and all sorts of other interactions in the same metric. I agree that there should be a distinction, to the extent that it's possible to separately identify them
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @r0b 23 Apr
User is 4 letters which is pretty handy when you're writing it a lot in your code
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @pj 23 Apr
The only common places we call people users is with software and drugs.
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