[robonerd]

Do a comment search on hn/algolia for both terms. 290 results for pyramid, 1096 for hierarchy.

I conclude that the pyramid terminology isn't a strawman completely out of left field, but also isn't representative of the way most people understand Maslow's theory.

[txru]

In my experience of psychology/sociology classes, the concept is called a hierarchy and depicted with a pyramid.

In practice always accompanying a thing with a metaphor isn't too different from naming the thing after the metaphor.