I agree with you. However, in part this is often done because giving or receiving medical advice online is generally ill advised. There can, in theory, even be legal concerns (potentially). Say someone gives bad advice and the person is harmed from it. I also think that all the misinformation that got disseminated during the pandemic left people gun-shy on these topics.
But I still agree with you in spirit. The “talk to your doctor” thing can be a too cold and reflexive with some folks. And there are a few home remedies that do work. And maybe the person asking just wants some emotional support and not the usual soulless canned advice.
This topic reminds me of people who automatically throw an 800 number out there whenever certain key words get mentioned. There’s almost always good intentions behind that. But in the USA at least, calling such a number can make a person’s life much worse. Loss of agency followed by a huge medical bill. Because it’s not really about helping the person. It’s about optics and collecting money.
I do this, too. I’ve noticed local companies who advertise heavily on local TV/radio often charge 2x as much as the competition who don’t. And the aggressive advertisers are often arrogant and difficult to work with.
And it pisses me off when I see giant insurance companies spending millions on celebrity spokespeople and Superbowl ads. That represents a lot of denied claims.
Beyond all that: fuck reddit. Don’t give money to spez.