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

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.