We should stop using the term "protolang" when teaching people the diachronic method

After 5 years of posting on r/conlangs I've come to the conclusion that the use of the term "protolang" to refer to the first stage of a conlang does more harm than good, especially when we use it when telling new people how to develop a conlang diachronically.

I've seen it over and over again: new people get the idea in their head that a "protolang" is something different from a language, that it needs to have simple grammar, that it needs to "look like an ancient language" etc. It's also just unfamiliar and potentially scary terminology. Further, if they DO have linguistic background, it's different from how that term is used in real linguistics where it refers to a model constructed from comparing real languages, not something from which other languages are constructed.

A much simpler thing to tell new people is this: "Naturalistic features in real world languages, such as irregularity or synonyms, are usually the result of the way that natural languages change over time. That's why if you want a naturalistic-looking language, a good way to do it is to take your first draft of the language and simulate a series of changes, such as sound changes or contact borrowings."