A friend linked me to an article about Chronicon today. Chronicon was originally a convention for chronically ill folks. After selling out the first year the creators decided that an online community was necessary.
The concept is cool. A closed community of folks sharing their thoughts and concerns and experiences with chronic illnesses with access to compiled resources and discounts, music, meditation, podcasts. A truly curated experience for the chronic illness community. All for $14.99 a month.
That sounds nice and all but isn't this... elitist? Millions of chronically ill folks in the US. Many more worldwide. An untapped market. Except. It's expensive to have a chronic illness. Many of us live on disability or stipends or have limited budgets or can't work full time because of... our illnesses! We have costs that able bodied folks don't have from copays to mobility aids to supplements and support garments to hyper specific diets. Being sick is expensive! We spend exorbitant amounts of money on stuff able-bodied and well folks will never need, not because we want to, because we NEED to. And they want us to stretch our budgets to fit in this one extra thing...
Everything is harder for chronically ill and disabled folks and we struggle in the fight for accessibility on a daily basis. Now someone has come along and created an exclusive, elitist paid service for members of the chronic illness community?
I am not about that life. I am not about exclusion and exploiting a community of folks who are fighting hard enough battles already.