"fried plant-based ‘chicken’" it makes no sense at all
A lot of it is egged on by the vegan/vegetarians and is the definition of false advertising.
I saw "vegan" mince in the meat section the other day. I feel sorry for the elderly or learning impaired who might be accidentally buying soy substitutes when their bodies are craving meat.
For example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074YGZ77H/
I only can interpret that label because I'm now cynically familiar with the deceptive advertising practices currently used. But, to someone not used to how advertisers try to make one thing seem to be another, saying 'beyond meat' is 'plant based' does not communicate this thing is just a bunch of vegetables.
This is a bad-faith argument.
I also suspect people who deem beef burgers "plant-based" on a colloquial level are few and far between.
What does 'beyond meat' tell me? 'beyond' tells me we are going somewhere with 'meat' as our starting point and destination unknown.
The one thing this does not communicate is that the contents are not meat.
To further illustrate your point, imagine trying to replicate carrots using only veal and calling it something like "calf-rots", it absolutely makes no sense. Your issue is primarily with the false representation, my issue is that we're intentionally making it harder to sell vegan/vegetarian alternatives by trying to replicate something unachievable instead of coming up with entirely new products. For example, I highly suspect there's an entire food category like bread that we haven't discovered yet.
Except they are achieving it. I've eaten Beyond Meat patties and they are close enough and good enough. As a 'vegan-curious' eater, products like Beyond Meat are a halfway point which eases the transition to a vegan diet (or at least a diet more balanced towards non-meat products).
As more people become more comfortable moving from 7-days a week meat-eating to something less, that is only going to help the vegan market.
Beyond Meat will do more to shift a portion of consumers across to vegan diets (at this point in history) than making new 'pure' vegan products.
Very few people eat sirloin steak everyday and so Beyond Meat isn't going to do much for the in terms of transitioning people who primarily eat cheaper meats.
On the other hand, Margarine (invented in the 1800's) converted tons of people from a purely animal product to one that doesn't need animal products without marketing it as "plant based".
That's not really their target market at the moment though. They are aiming their product at 'vegan-curious' people. People who are not adverse to eating more vegetarian products, frequently want to because of environmental/animal welfare reasons, but don't want to cos they like the taste of meat.
Also, it's still very early days though - Beyond Meat can barely keep up with demand and haven't optimised their production at all. I see no reason their price curve wouldn't follow the traditional curve of almost any product where the early premium prices drop as production process matures and output ramps up.
Veal carrots are not a thing only because there's no market for veal eaters who enjoy eating carrots yet have ethical and environmental concerns about it.
I'm a meat eater who's never opted for a meat substitute in my life until these options. They absolutely have started to achieve being a replacement. I don't need it to reliably pass as beef in a blind taste test, I just need it to be good while being essentially a burger. (Or whatever.)
I was never going to try a chunk of tofu no matter how many people insist that it can be great. I tried this because people say it tastes like a burger. Some people want a new experience and some people want a familiar one.
Maybe this will be a gateway item that will demystify plant-based food for me and others and make me more likely to try future products that don't mimic meat.
As for the wording, I don't see why its any different from veggie burger, or diet soda. Consumers associate these products with certain properties, which can be emulated in the substitutes.
I don't consider myself problematic for eating meat. However, clinging to meat on principle, to the point of getting triggered like this with accusations and insults, is just shitty.
Quotes and asterisks are as you said not always sufficiently visible differentiators, but misspellings like "Chikken" or the like will usually be trademarked by a particular organization and not be available for widespread usage.
The real crime is that we are gonna have to think of a different name for non-euclidean chicken products.
Secondly, language doesn't work that way so we end up soy milk, grasshopper pie, sweetbread, head cheese, cocoa butter, Bombay duck, Rocky Mountain oysters, coconut meat, Welsh rabbit, Mississippi caviar, chicken fingers, ladyfingers, Jerusalem artichokes, and Grapenuts.
Do you feel the same way about soy milk or almond milk?