Yeah, this is one of my pet peeves. "Feedback" originally had a quite technical meaning that it more or less lost once it became a buzzword in the 50s, in much the same way that "object oriented" lost its meaning in the 89s.

The really important thing about "feedback control" as developed by Black, Nyquist, et al. wasn't that they realized it's a good idea to check to see whether your plan is actually achieving its goal, and correct if it's not. That's just common sense, after all (although the usual disclaimer about common sense being uncommon applies).

The real technical contribution of "feedback control" is that true feedback, in the sense of a dynamic system, can control a system without having to build a model of it. I.e. if your control system is fast enough relative to the system it's controlling, it doesn't have to _predict_ anything, it can just _react_.

Which, if you think about it, is really the _opposite_ of what people usually mean when they say your manager gives you feedback in your performance review, customers give you feedback on your product, etc. When you get that kind of feedback, you still have to figure out what it means in order to do anything with it.