Brewing Debate, User vs. Consumer

Joseph Jaffe's been involving himself in a semantic debate over the terminology User vs. Consumer, so I thought I'd quickly weigh in with my thoughts.

I think it's a little more simple than most people are trying to make it.

A USER is a person who uses your product or service. 

A CONSUMER is someone who consumes your brand.  For example, the consumer may be on different levels of the purchasing cycle, including pre-purchase.  A consumer is not necessarily a user or a customer.  They may just not be there, yet.  The consumer absorbs some aspect of your brand, whether it's the product itself, your brand messaging, their sister-in-law's experience, general word-of-mouth, overall impression of brand, what charities you are involved with, some accounting scandal they read about in the paper, etc.

The point is a consumer is not just a customer or a user, because it is also a potential customer, or a former customer you've already lost.  Only using the terms customer or user immediately eliminates your potential growth areas.

So, debate over?