Change private fields/methods to protected in Consumer class to allow for extensibility

[jasonraimondi]

Background

I am looking to extend this class to add some custom functionality but all the private methods are a bit of a hindrance. Would you be open to the idea of changing all the private methods to protected? I would be happy to submit this pull request.

Rationale

• Allows extending the class for custom use cases
• Enables overriding specific methods without modifying original code
• Maintains encapsulation while increasing flexibility