I'm in violent agreement with this: >> you're still a consumer But I (and the OP, to my read) meant "customer" instead. That takes nothing away from the quali

I'm in violent agreement with this: >> you're still a consumer But I (and the OP, to my read) meant "customer" instead. That takes nothing away from the quality of service being provided, etc. (although good luck getting support from the vendor if you have a problem with e.g. Gmail or Google search). But it is kind of silly to talk about pricing for a service like search that is provided free to its users. In discussing monetization, the difference between the "consumer" and "customer" obviously matters.