Good luck to Match.com - not. Any company could try and use this as justification to find out things about their competitors. For example, 37signals claims: "Over 3 million people use our web-based apps to get things done the simple way." Sending them a letter saying that you don't believe them and that they must substantiate the claim by return mail would, I suspect, be met with much laughter.
37 signals line is genuinely horseshit though. They're quite clearly counting people who signup as "people who use our web-based apps". That's a truly false and misleading claim. It's beneath them.
The great thing about user numbers is that you have so many to choose from!
There are straightforward, well-used definitions of "user" for which I have 60, 1.5k, 2.9k, 50.0k, and "well over a hundred thousand" users. They're all equally true and none of them singly or in combination tell you a thing about the health of my business unless you're intimately acquainted with it.
The problem is that 37 signals qualified the statement. They're claiming there are 3 million "people who use our web-based apps". That pretty explicitly means active and current users of their products. If they said they had 3 million registered users that'd be an entirely different thing, and, ya'know: true.
The question is not about what the _lone word_ "user" means. That's obviously not specific enough to have a single definition.
The question is what does "3 million people who use our web-based apps" mean.
A simple truth test: Are there "3 million people who use [their] web-based apps"? Absolutely not. Not under even the most remotely reasonable definition.
Of course you are assuming that there are not 3 million active and current users of their products. If you consider that many people have multiple user accounts on 37signals products (and that they count free but active users too) it is not unreasonable.
But isn't everybody doing that? Or, at least a lot of people?
If your database has 3 millions lines in the account table, it feels better to use that number than the number of accounts that, say, logged in in the past x months. Especially if that second number is way less.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I feel it's one of these games where since everyone is doing it, you have to catch up one way or the other.
If you read "Rework", you'll come away with the impression that blindly mimicking the competition because "you have to catch up" is precisely not the 37signals way. I do not believe they need to be making inflated claims.
What else do you call people who sign-up if not "users"?
They don't say that "2 million people use our apps and all of them signed in yesterday", they're just giving you an idea of the total number of accounts they have in their db.
So if I take a note of all the people who've used the toilet in my house, I could say, perhaps, 80 people would be on the list. Is it now valid for me to say "Over 75 people use our toilet"? Perhaps, but the implication doesn't match the reality.
Perhaps, but the implication doesn't match the reality
How so? Over 75 people have used your toilet.
This is like suggesting that McDonalds' "over xx billion served" mantra is supposed to mean that there are over xx billion customers in their store at any given time.
I'm not sure if that's how you read it, but I certainly don't take the statement that 37s makes to be misleading.
This is like suggesting that McDonalds' "over xx billion served" mantra is supposed to mean that there are over xx billion customers in their store at any given time.
Except that "served" is past tense and "use" is the simple present. If 37signals had said 3 million have "used" their software, this discussion probably wouldn't have kicked off. Instead, they used the present tense, implying that 3 million people routinely and currently use the software, which is highly unlikely.
