What's with the "Product"??

[Beanzy]

It’s the language of commoditisation, it first began to get on my nerves when they started naming the personnel department Human Resources. It felt a bit like we were all units on a corporate shelf. At least before they used to pretend, now we're overtly reminded how disposable we are, it helps with the balance of power.

[Jess L.]

... users (notice, they're not customers or people) ...

It’s the language of commoditisation, it first began to get on my nerves when they started naming the personnel department Human Resources. It felt a bit like we were all units on a corporate shelf. At least before they used to pretend, now we're overtly reminded how disposable we are, it helps with the balance of power.

Reminds me of when the word got changed from "customers" to "consumers" a few decades ago. I didn't like that too much either, at the time. Maybe it makes sense from an economics and statistical point of view, but it has an awfully cold implication to it.

[po56okie]

There are ways to keep cold business language out of everything - the world could be so much more romantic...

I like this !

[Tom Coletti]

Connotations aside, "product" is simply a term for the output of something per a specific amount of inputs. It's generic but intentionally so, because it's more of a template word for examining overall systems, and system-level terminology makes it easier to see how a system is designed, how it works, and how to make it better.

The OP describes a retail store, but a luthier's shop is another type of system; every machine, table, or jig is a station that performs an operation, every block of tone wood is raw material, and a finished instrument is a product of the materials and transformative work that went into it. It seems like an unceremonious way to describe the hard work and craftsmanship that goes into musical instruments, but the blander dissection of that workshop allows one to find things like bottlenecks or defects, and that allows the people who put in that hard work to improve their workflow and make their jobs easier.

[DHopkins]

prod·uct
ˈprädəkt
noun
1. an article or substance that is manufactured or refined for sale.

That's why.

They are.

Now that's cuttin' to the chase.