Would you prefer the reporter refer to you as a family, company, or building…
The point being made here is that customer is the best noun that the English language has for a reporter to talk about a companies customers. This was never about an electric company referring to people. This is all some made up BS that is completely off topic to the article.
What should the AP have called all the customers of the utility companies other than customers?
It can be just like you’ve said. You can also run tailscale directly on the system hosting a service and access it directly over the tailscale network.