I would be very interested in an app or site where people list things they’ll do for free. It’s like Fiverr or Fetlife, but it’s all about free help, giving or receiving.
For example, someone could simply post that they are hungry and would like a meal. Because every single person on the platform is there with the pretext of genuinely wanting to find someone to help, wanting to help anyone who wants help, this would be a much better space than social networks like Reddit or Facebook, where when you ask for help, you may receive it, but there can often be backlash because people often accuse people asking for the help of not needing it, being to blame in some way like being lazy, a freeloader, irresponsible, or something (IMO).
It’s a place where there is no expectation except to give free help so there is way, way less fear, anxiety, or shame in just openly admitting publicly what you want right now, which it’s often much harder socially to actually approach and ask someone about.
I feel like somehow culturally or socially asking for help can be very psychologically heavy, burdensome, or hard, even when you really need it, because you feel intensely self-conscious that the person is doing something for you that they don’t really want to, like a favor or giving you money, and that they’re judging you, even if they do help; or that they will help but it’s just this once, and their neighborliness is going to clearly run out at a certain point, like you’re a “help vampire”, overstepping the boundaries.
It just makes me think a lot about how capitalistic our society is just in the sense that it is a very widely omnipresent expectation that if someone does something for you, you should pay them. Money is so integrated into our social comprehension that I feel like people actually often have stifled desires that they find impossible to meet just because culturally it is very uncommon to just ask a stranger for something you want and can’t get.
It could also become a “giving/gift economy” where people do all kinds of things for each other, voluntarily, like cook, make clothing, teach something, do some work, transport or run an errand, etc. I hope it could open up new avenues for everybody because people want to exchange things for each other and money can be taken out of the equation since nobody is paying for it and nobody is earning it.
Is there any website, app, or platform on which to easily offer and request (free) help, with no ambiguity that that’s what the site is for, so people feel way more encouraged to do so, and would very unlikely be judged?
