Sober Time + BetterHelp

Announcements
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Hi Talking Sober community,

Sober Time has partnered with BetterHelp, an online therapy service. You might see BetterHelp featured in some places in Sober Time going forward.

I’m making this post not as a promotional post, but as clarification on why this partnership is happening and how it affects our users.

So, as most of you probably know, Sober Time is a free app with a free community that is accessible to anyone who wants to download it. But Sober Time needs revenue to run. The servers, services, community, file hosting, and cloud storage all cost a monthly fee to maintain. So I could either make it a paid app with an upfront cost, or a free app with other monetization. I chose to go with free to keep it available to everyone who needs it.

Sober Time is supported by ads, and an optional Premium purchase. Those who want the extra benefits of Premium can subscribe, while those who don’t can choose to watch the occasional ad. I always try to balance these, but it is difficult. I want Premium to have useful benefits, but I don’t want it to feel required. I want free users to have access to resources, but I don’t want to spam them with ads.

Over the years, I’ve been conscious of how Sober Time can help people looking for recovery. Sober Time has tools, motivation and even a thriving community. It doesn’t have any professional therapists or addiction counselors, and I simply don’t have the scope or knowledge to set anything like that up myself.

With BetterHelp, it gives our users access to professional therapy services. Sober Time users also get a 20% discount. I believe this is very relevant to our community and its needs and could help a lot of people. Like normal ads, Sober Time will receive compensation or affiliate fees when you interact with it which will help support the app. Because we have this showing in a few extra places, it means I can reduce the normal ads to improve the user experience.

I also believe this is better than normal ads. Those ads pop up in between pages and can be annoying. These are buttons in specific places in the app’s menu and they can be disabled. Normal ads also show whatever Google wants to show you (excluding some categories that are disabled) and I have less control over them. With BetterHelp, I know the service being offered and how it’s relevant to our community.

A quick fact sheet:

  • Premium users don’t see ads, so they won’t see anything related to BetterHelp unless they choose to enable it in Sober Time’s settings
  • Anyone can disable BetterHelp from Sober Time’s settings if they’re not interested (even free users)
  • Sober Time doesn’t send any of your data to BetterHelp. None of your addictions, journals or anything like that. If you are interested and tap on the link, you’ll go to the BetterHelp website and your discount will be applied.
  • Normal advertising will be reduced, so the app’s user experience will be improved.

In summary, Premium users will notice no difference. Free users will see fewer ads, and a button or two added to the app’s menu that they can also choose to disable if they are not interested. I specifically wanted to make it an option to disable this. I want everyone to feel in control of their app. I also wanted our community to receive some value out of it, which is why we have the discount available to us. If this is something you were interested in already, you can sign up with a discount while supporting Sober Time. If not, you can disable it and you’ll actually just see fewer ads overall.

As always, I take these types of decisions very seriously and I genuinely think this will be good for the app and for our community.

If you’ve read this far - thanks! Have a good, sober week.

Robin

Just adding this disclaimer here:

As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp when you purchase products or services provided by the links in this app.

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BetterHealth has been the subject of a complaint regarding its privacy policies, that recently resulted in an Order by the Federal Trade Commission banning them from sharing sensitive data for advertising. Something they appear to have been doing for years (I say appear because no judge has been involved). I can only hope they have bettered their ways. I’m not implying our private personal data is unsafe on Talking Sober. But the partnership does concern me.

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Because there was no trial. It doesn’t mean they didn’t do what they did! It was not disputed. They paid the fine to partly refund the clients. They never apologised.

BetterHelp does not give a shit about their clients or their mental health. They make money off of the suffering of ppl by selling their data without their consent and then they lie about it!

I am extremely concerned!

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Keeping a service like Sober Time free for those who can not, or don’t want to, purchase some type of premium plan is no small undertaking; especially when trying to figure out alternative ways to fund this operation without implementing invasive and/or frustrating advertisements. I appreciate your constant conscientiousness in this regard.

Since a couple people have expressed some concerns about BetterHelp, perhaps having some kind of pinned Q&A thread about Sober Time’s affiliation with BetterHelp could prove useful, with additional points which can give people ideas about things to consider when choosing and staying with a mental health professional, and also the personal data “risk vs. reward” of using an online mental health service in comparison to an in-person visit. None of this being that it would be straight forward “advise”, for legal reasons, but providing “points of consideration” that may prove useful in a person making their own decision on their own mental health needs.

Unfortunately, these days there is always a risk of companies profiting off of their customer’s personal data, and this can be even more egregious (in my opinion) when it comes to personal mental health data. However, I would most definitely prefer an affiliation such as this over other advertising options. I think that providing new users with an easy to access post such as the one I suggested above, or some other similar option, will provide information and context that will hopefully be useful. Ultimately, everyone is responsible for their own decisions, but perhaps providing this kind of useful information will help users to make the most appropriate decisions for their situation and also alleviate some of the concerns some users have about this partnership.

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I fully support this idea. It mitigates some of the concerns and educates people on important topics that are transferable to any online interaction, especially when it comes to purchasing a service. Thank you @Chiron

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Ya unless your data is being stolen and sold w/o your consent. Lol.

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The statement you quoted had to do with people making choices in general and being properly informed, which is connected to the legalities of one company seeming to make mental health recommendations to people.

I heard yours and @Mno’s concerns and tried to offer up a solution but also help allow for this platform to still continue to operate. If a large amount of users paid for this service, there would be no need to look for outside affiliates. This would definitely be the preferred situation.

I think your concerns are valid and I, myself, share them; and overall I try to promote awareness of privacy and data usage in general.

What are your ideas for solutions in this situation, that will both addess your concerns and still allow Talking Sober the funds to continue opperations as a free resource to everyone?

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That’s great you share the cncerns, I mean that.

I have no ideas and no solutions on how to run this platform which does not make my criticism any less real or valid. It’s a dangerous thought you can only name problems if you can solve them.
I’ve also spent zero time trying to find a solution on ST’s funding conundrum, I’ll happily admit it. This whole thing really is not about me. Or you. Or our competence, at all. This exchange alone is sidetracking the issue.

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I agree and never implied otherwise.

I disagree. You shared your concerns about the subject of the thread, I tried to come up with some ideas to help address them, and asked if you had any ideas (this allows you more space to be heard and maybe you could have had a better idea than me), you said no.

This is all very straightforward and on topic as the thread is about funding TS and the affiliation with BH. Discussion is always important when there are concerns, but I will leave the coversation here. I appreciate your willingness to discuss.

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According to Snopes it is being offered to anyone affected by the invasion regardless of nationality or location. This was verified by their CEO. It also mentions their shitty data acts so it seems accurate although I did not check the sources that Snopes used.

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I appreciate the feedback and the likes so far.

I’ll try my best to address the issues raised below, but feel free to ask further questions.

Data privacy is something that is important to me. For those who know me, I’ve always ensured that your addiction data, journals, statistics, and basically everything on the app is kept private. I have a hard stance on not ever selling this data or sharing it with another party. This is no different with BetterHelp. None of your Sober Time or Talking Sober data is being shared with them. It’s not even something they requested or asked about.

From a technical point of view, Sober Time doesn’t integrate any of BetterHelp’s code or libraries and doesn’t ‘hook’ into anything else. The BetterHelp placements you see are part of Sober Time’s app and layouts, and it really is just a button that opens their web page outside of Sober Time. That is the extent of the integration - there isn’t much to it. Nothing else is passed to them, and it is in effect the same as just opening their website from any device, except it goes to a mini Sober Time landing page to apply your discount. BetterHelp will know you come from Sober Time because of the discount, but that’s all. No data about you or your app is shared with them from Sober Time. It’s just a referral.

After that, you’re in BetterHelp’s hands and the data or information you share with them falls under their privacy policy. I did go and read through this before the time. It seems solid and reasonable to me and it seems that they are abiding by data privacy laws. It’s publicly available on their website for those who are interested. I wasn’t aware of the issue that Mno mentioned, but it seems like they were under a lot of scrutiny and have been trying to improve in that area (just my opinion).

At the end of the day though, this is still a major improvement over traditional ads. Remember, you can disable BetterHelp and it will have absolutely no effect on you at all. The traditional ads can be random and irrelevant, from mobile games to used cars. I don’t have fine control of those. I don’t have the luxury to go and view each of those ads and see what they offer, who is behind the company, and what their policies are.

With BetterHelp I know what’s being offered and I can see the value it brings to our community. Not just in supporting the app, but in getting people mental health care. Something very applicable for someone going through sobriety. This is why I believe this is good for Sober Time and our users.

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Nope. My previous post has more detail :slight_smile:

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Ive used better help within the last week. Thanks for the update. Hope all is well :pray:

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Thanks for the update Robin. It doesn’t take away my misgivings about BetterHelp’s handling of their customers data. They sold those data despite their privacy policy, which they didn’t adhere to for many years. And after getting caught they lied about it. I do trust my data here at TalkingSober is safe, but still I don’t like the feeling of TalkingSober doing business with a company that has not adhered to its own privacy policies for years.

At the end of the day BetterHelp is a business model aimed at making as much money as possible. Nothing more and nothing less. A subscription costs between 60 and 90 dollars a week. With no insurance coverage anywhere, although in the USA there is some financial support possible for people with low income. But its aim is profit. I read a comment on the FTC website calling BetterHelp the McDonalds of mental health and i do think that’s an apt description.

As to the usefulness of the therapy BetterHelps offers, I don’t know. On average BetterHelp gets pretty good ratings from its customers. And I am sure there are many good individual therapists working for them. Two things you won’t find at BetterHelp is a diagnosis or a meds prescription. And they are specifically not suited for crisis interventions.

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I checked myself out of seeing any Better Help ads as this post advised I could. A couple of days ago, the Better Help ads started.

This isn’t very promising considering Better Help lied to its user base for years about what happens to their data and now I feel lied to by TS about having the ability to not see them when using the app…? To say I’m concerned would be an understatement.

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I keep clicking that im not interested in better help then whenever i reopen my TS its back again…pretty annoying

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The ‘not interested’ feature is something that I built, so if it’s showing even after opting out it sounds like an error on the app’s side. I’ll have a look and see if there’s a bug or flaw in the logic.

Are you on Android or iOS? Can you go to Menu > Settings > BetterHelp to see if it’s enabled there?

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Ok il have a look thanks Robin, im android

After checking, i dont have better help enabled but it still pops up when i come on here

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Thank you for the info. I had a look and I see a potential problem in the logic, but I’ll need to do a bit more testing before I can confirm.

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Ok, thank you Robin :blush: