BetterHelp: The direct-to-consumer mental health platform owned by Teladoc Health Inc. Alon Matas is the president of BetterHelp, Teladoc Health's direct-to-consumer mental health service. He is responsible for strategic direction, business growth, service operations, partnerships, and product development. The comment sections of videos with Betterhelp ads, especially those from creators who don't normally talk about mental health, are full of critical viewers.
Despite the explanations of the founder of BetterHelp, the online community is now still very suspicious of the platform. However, to understand the controversy surrounding BetterHelp, it's helpful to understand how the service works. Matas said that BetterHelp, which has customers from 168 countries, including Israel, has benefited from the growing acceptance and visibility of mental health problems. YouTuber Roberto Blake tweeted about his experience with the app, noting that it was a positive experience and that he never received sponsorship from BetterHelp.
BetterHelp maintained its brand after the acquisition and continues to provide online counseling services to consumers. BetterHelp is a mental health platform that offers online mental health services directly to consumers. At the end of the video, the YouTubers proceeded to promote the BetterHelp services, which included affiliate links that reportedly earned them money for each subscription contracted by one of their fans. Israeli-born businessman Alon Matas chuckles his teeth when he talks about the fact that his online counseling site, BetterHelp, receives a disproportionate number of customers from the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Jordan.
He founded BetterHelp after realizing that connecting with a professional therapist can be difficult, expensive, and inaccessible. YouTube creators often work with companies on sponsored videos, but the increase in locations on BetterHelp, a new wellness app, has reportedly caused viewers to worry that people will be misled. Therefore, BetterHelp does not provide the mental health service itself, but simply links the user to a professional. The recent BetterHelp scandal, in which a highly publicized online counseling application was found to be less reliable than what was being promoted, shed light on the consequences of influential people promoting services without paying attention to their quality.
However, there is a sense of distrust among the community about the number of BetterHelp ads and sponsorships on YouTube. YouTuber Deschroma even posted a seven-minute video detailing her terrible experience with BetterHelp, but added that she couldn't talk about the experience of others.