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Originally Posted by CityGirl8
As I said, I do appreciate the good information DD has made available. But both companies provide information and support for people trying to lose weight for a subscription fee--and both claim that they're not really about weight loss, but about health. That doesn't make either one of them "bad." But I do think it's a bit disingenuous for DD to claim they're radically different than WW. What makes the two companies different is the diets they prescribe.
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I would say they are radically different, and not just in the diets they prescribe. As someone with a web-based business myself, and also hate to be marketed to, I have discovered that "expecting everything for free" and being suspicious of anything that costs money can be an unthinking reflex.
The difference between rip-off artists and people selling guidance and expertise is in how well what they sell,
works.
- Stores have rent, websites have hosting fees and bandwidth. Popular sites pay a lot each month to stay open. I pay for this site, to avoid the ads and support the cause, but it really is one or the other.
- Content doesn't generate itself, or put itself online. Someone is fussing with those pictures, formatting the stories, making sure they don't have typos, and figuring out ways of explaining the knowledge to all kinds of different people, with different learning styles. Now, a site is expected to have videos, podcast, ebooks; all available.
- Yes, people sell things to make money, but it costs money to make these things. Another thread mentioned people who pay Virta Health hundreds of dollars to coach themselves through low carb for their diabetes because they can't do it for themselves. These are the people who WANT a system, which costs money.
- It takes a lot of TIME. I put in easily another full time job on my site, and I had to start selling things or I couldn't keep "on the air." Popularity makes its own demands.
- People want HELP: consultations, videos, plans, books, instructions. It takes time to make these, and the expert who does so should be compensated.
- It also takes money and time to make a site work right and look good. Because if it is a mess with broken links and bad color schemes, no one will trust it. The message won't get through.
I once recommended GutSense.org and the response was, "But he sells things." Yes, he does, and part of it is because
people demand it. They don't want to make their own decisions about which prebiotic, or read a bunch of blog posts and figure it out themselves. They want to BUY something that does some of the WORK for them, and there's nothing wrong with that.
My own fans want me to write books and outline step by step instructions, and we are working on our own Youtube channel where I can instruct visually.
Yes, it's all on my site for free, just like Diet Doctor, but people who want more can have more.
They want it. And it costs money and time to give it to them.
WW makes you pay to play. And they don't teach you anything. You are dependent on them; their plans, their explanations, their pre-packaged foods and attendance at the meetings. But WW doesn't have people talking about how their health improved.
One is about dress sizes, and one is about getting your life back.
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