I think &quot;supplier&quot; would&#x27;ve been a more accurate term when bank accounts actually paid interest.  Savings accounts at my bank pay 0.01%; standard CD rates top out at 0.05% for a 1-year.<p>(I do have a high-yield online-only savings account that pays significantly more than that, and feel like I&#x27;m much more of a supplier to them, although in some way &quot;supplier&quot; connotes that I&#x27;m actively doing work to provide a product or service for them, which I don&#x27;t feel toward my bank.  But the article is about retail banks; the bargain with most retail banks these days is &quot;They give you convenience; you give them money, which they can loan out to make more money.&quot;  That&#x27;s much more like the bargain that Internet companies and TV make than the one that say AdSense, App Developers, and Uber make.)