My orientation to this conversation seems more like "hmm, I'm learning that it is possible the word qualia has a bunch of connotations that I didn't know it had", as opposed to "hmm, I was wrong to believe in the-thing-I-was-calling-qualia."

But I'm not yet sure that these connotations are actually universal – the wikipedia article opens with:

In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia (/ˈkwɑːliə/ or /ˈkweɪliə/; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term qualia derives from the Latinneuter plural form (qualia) of the Latin adjective quālis (Latin pronunciation: [ˈkʷaːlɪs]) meaning "of what sort" or "of what kind" in a specific instance, like "what it is like to taste a specific apple, this particular apple now".

Examples of qualia include the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, as well as the redness of an evening sky. As qualitative characters of sensation, qualia stand in contrast to "propositional attitudes",[1] where the focus is on beliefs about experience rather than what it is directly like to be experiencing.

Philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett once suggested that qualia was "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us".[2]

Much of the debate over their importance hinges on the definition of the term, and various philosophers emphasize or deny the existence of certain features of qualia. Consequently, the nature and existence of various definitions of qualia remain controversial because they are not verifiable.

Later on, it notes the three characteristics (ineffable/private/intrinsic) that Dennett listed.

But this looks more like an accident of history than something intrinsic to the term. The opening paragraphs defined qualia the way I naively expected it to be defined.

My impression looking at the various defintions and discussion is not that qualia was defined in this specific fashion, so much as various people trying to grapple with a confusing problem generated various possible definitions and rules for it, and some of those turned out to be false once we came up with better understanding.

I can see where you're coming from with the soul analogy, but I'm not sure if it's more like the soul analogy, or more like "One early philosopher defined 'a human' as a featherless biped, and then a later one said "dude, look at this featherless chicken I just made" and they realized the definition was silly.

I guess my question here is – do you have a suggestion for a replacement word for "the particular kind of observation that gets made by an entity that actually gets to experience the perception"? This still seems importantly different from "just a perception", since very simple robots and thermostats or whatever can be said to have those. I don't really care whether they are inherently private, ineffable or intrinsic, and whether Daniel Dennett was able to eff them seems more like a historical curiosity to me.

The wikipedia article specifically says that they people argue a lot over the definitions:

There are many definitions of qualia, which have changed over time. One of the simpler, broader definitions is: "The 'what it is like' character of mental states. The way it feels to have mental states such as pain, seeing red, smelling a rose, etc."

That definition there is the one I'm generally using, and the one which seems important to have a word for. This seems more like a political/coordination question of "is it easier to invent a new word and gain traction for it, or get everyone on page about 'actually, they're totally in principle effable, you just might need to be a kind of mind different than a current-generation-human to properly eff them.'