Amid a mental health crisis, Talkspace pledged to expand young people’s access to therapy. Company data shows few were served while the tech platform raked in millions.
Right, the outrage should be directed to these cities for the ridiculous spend along with apparently a lack of promotion of the services. The article, and thus the title here, seems to have a lean towards blaming talkspace for those contracts and not at the city level where it belongs.
The city likely provided the same funding for marketing / outreach as was provided to all the other people who got that contract – and those other places generally performed a lot better than talkspace. If the one variable that changes is the third party contractor, it’s difficult to see how it’s the city’s fault on that front, other than buying in to talkspace’s claims that virtual therapy was a thing kids were clamoring for.
And outrage is still a weird bar to me. Not all news needs to generate outrage. It can be a mundane groan of “ffs, the city’s wasting a bunch of tax payer dollars again on a third party partner that already failed to deliver results… maybe we should vote in new people next time around”.
*edit to note: from a ‘technology’ perspective, it’s also a somewhat interesting article, as it highlights the disconnect between some tech company claims, and reality. Especially in regards to the tech companies claims, and the reality of what the intended users actually want/need.
Right, the outrage should be directed to these cities for the ridiculous spend along with apparently a lack of promotion of the services. The article, and thus the title here, seems to have a lean towards blaming talkspace for those contracts and not at the city level where it belongs.
The city likely provided the same funding for marketing / outreach as was provided to all the other people who got that contract – and those other places generally performed a lot better than talkspace. If the one variable that changes is the third party contractor, it’s difficult to see how it’s the city’s fault on that front, other than buying in to talkspace’s claims that virtual therapy was a thing kids were clamoring for.
And outrage is still a weird bar to me. Not all news needs to generate outrage. It can be a mundane groan of “ffs, the city’s wasting a bunch of tax payer dollars again on a third party partner that already failed to deliver results… maybe we should vote in new people next time around”.
*edit to note: from a ‘technology’ perspective, it’s also a somewhat interesting article, as it highlights the disconnect between some tech company claims, and reality. Especially in regards to the tech companies claims, and the reality of what the intended users actually want/need.
Maybe the perceived outage is all on me. I will take that and think about it.
Appreciate the thoughtful dialog.