... the other customers ...

So as not to disturb the other customers. This deadening of the language marks the convergence of all people being some kind of consumers (or "customers") with the controversial sham that all people are in all situations nothing but consumers (or "customers"). Public transportation speaks of its passengers as customers; schools and universities are likely to cater more and more to customers instead of students (what is education now but a service provided?), clinics and hospitals treat customers. Nobody reading these lines needs me to perform for them an indignant rebuke of the wicked consumerist core of this enterprise. (At least the vulgarization here is on some level honest.) What else does bother me is the homogenization of multiple meanings, which had enjoyed multiple corresponding words, into a single word, a word which itself may have different meanings and contexts, but whose sameness could very well be used to spackle over differences and arrive at ridiculous sociopolitical or juridical conclusions. As with corporations being "individuals."

"If the root be in confusion, nothing will be well governed." (Pound/Confucius)