Aubrey Yung: "audience captures relevance; areaServed captures coverage"
Quote (Aubrey Yung, practitioner reference):
"Audience captures relevance, while areaServed captures coverage."
Source: https://aubreyyung.com/audience-schema/
Confidence: Single-source (practitioner blog).
The pragmatic distinction: audience = who the service is intended for (vertical, role, demographic). areaServed = where the service is available (geography). These are independent dimensions. A "Bulk Lubricant Delivery" service for "Agriculture" audience available in "Waterloo Region" needs both properties — collapsing them into one field loses signal.
Practitioner blogs are single-source by definition — flag and treat with appropriate skepticism. But the distinction itself is sound and consistent with how Schema.org's own canonical examples are structured (Schema.org canonical pattern: one Service entity with audience: { type: Audience, name: ... } + areaServed).