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Comment by zero_billion | Hacker News Reader

support groups do help. it's proven to be effective with substance abuse addictions. we are helping people with a support group where users can share and help each other.

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They're sharing on your "platform". The only reason for you to do this is because it's profitable to you for some reason, hence, you're capitalizing on people's pains.

Support groups help in real life, not over some app where a faceless entity's purpose of existence is to extract your money.

Eh, that's a low bar. By that metric therapists also capitalize on other people's pain.

They do but there’s nothing wrong with that. Everything in life is an economic transaction if it involves more than one person. The other poster is just being pedantic and a bit mean.

The therapists (and the app) are supposed to capitalize on improvement. Saying that they capitalize on pain takes a dystopic perspective that I find unjustified. Until they are shown to employ dark patterns, we shouldn't dismiss them like that.

That’s fair but I think the difference is arbitrary. They exist because people are in pain or suffering so their market is people who are suffering. Again I do not think it’s a bad thing that people capitalize on their suffering as long as they are providing a (mutually) beneficial service.

I see what you mean. And I still find "capitalize on pain" too broad a framing for what the app. Characterizing it that way does not inform and draws parallels to other, less ethical players that "capitalize on pain". Such as Purdue Pharma for example.

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