>>That's where I like to stress the distinction between a customer and a consumer. Customer is always right. Consumer may be told to shove it.
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>I'm not sure I agree with that definition. What if, instead of thousands of users, you have 50, 100, 500? I don't consider them consumers, but customers.

Exactly. In one of previous lives I had (i.e. the company had) about 100 customers (with anywhere between 2 and 20 people at each location who were using our software), and they were customers - we kept visiting them, talked with them on the phone etc.

It's when you start selling off-the-shelf stuff, when you can't maintain contact with your end user, when the user becomes a consumer. I had only three cases of shrink-wrap app in my career, and the lack of feedback is really hard to get over.

BTW, when your user is a consumer, is your software a consumable then?