I don't think "there is a class difference between those who are self-employed and those who employ others and describing both as business owners only flattens that difference" is a reach. Describing oneself as a business owner instead of a laborer when doing freelance labor is an example of the tendency of the lowest of the petty bourgeois to try to liken themselves to the "haute" bourgeoisie.

I am attempting to explain what OP said in the title.

people's brains are so addled by capitalism that people who take pictures of people's pets for a living will tell you that they have a "pet photography business"

[–] the_robot_from_planet_danger@hexbear.net 1 points 1 month ago

I wasn't thinking of class implications, so much as thinking it was interesting that socially people want to use language that... I dunno, tries to connect their experience and identity with capitalist signifiers? Just think it's part of the rich tapestry (or shroud P:) of ambient, internalized and assumed ideology that shroud-like we are buried in.