> It seems too well crafted for their main focus to be on their stated goal of giving individuals the tools to treat themselves.

Is this how you think about everything? Do you go to a restaurant with nice chairs and think, "The food here must suck, they spend too much money on the furniture"?

When it’s a small operation, yes I get suspicious that they’re not focusing on their stated mission with their limited resources. Also, ambience is part of the sensory pleasure of a restaurant.

Hell yeah, you know the best food comes from the dingiest joints

…which would be one way of giving individuals those tools, no?

They do the whole warrant canary completely wrong tho.

I would imagine that there are many designers out there who would be very happy to contribute to a project like this on a volunteer basis.

Also, purposely making your website look less "well crafted" strikes me as quite cynical (and almost certainly counterproductive).

> The actual aim seems closer to marketing or perhaps influencing public discourse on the subject

A worthy aim, no?

... How much do giant drug corps spend on marketing? Last I remember, it was more than they spend on drug development; in the tens of billions of dollars annually. In this context, quibbling that a website seems too nice seems remarkably misguided.

Finally, considering how much effort has been put into helping people actually make these things - far more than anyone else! - I think trying to redefine their aim to be just marketing is deeply unfair.

I’d argue that the political message is indivisible from the information-giving message in this case. Most of the groups doing this are in the business because they have a distrust for authority, desire to help community, etc. Shouldn’t we expect their messaging to be a little on the anarchist or libertarian side?