The Loneliness Economy: Marketing to Isolated Consumers

A 28-year-old woman spends $89 monthly on a subscription service that sends her personalized text messages throughout the day, simulating friendship.

A 65-year-old man pays $40 per week for a video chat service where someone listens to him talk about his day for thirty minutes.

A 19-year-old college student subscribes to four different Discord communities—$15 each monthly—just to feel like she belongs somewhere.

Welcome to the Loneliness Economy.

It's not a future trend. It's a $4.6 billion market that's growing at 14% annually, according to a 2024 analysis by Markets and Markets. And it presents marketers with both an enormous opportunity and a profound ethical challenge.

Because unlike most market opportunities, this one is built on human suffering. And how you approach it says everything about the kind of marketer—and the kind of person—you are.

The Data: Loneliness Is an Epidemic, Not Just a Feeling

Before we talk about marketing implications, let's establish the scale of what we're dealing with.

U.S. Surgeon General's 2023 Report on Loneliness and Isolation found that more than half of U.S. adults report experiencing measurable loneliness. Not occasional solitude—chronic loneliness with health impacts comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes daily.

Cigna's 2024 Loneliness Index surveyed 20,000+ Americans and found that 61% report feeling lonely, up from 46% in 2019. Critically, loneliness is highest among young adults (18-24), where 79% report feeling lonely frequently.

Harvard's Making Caring Common Project discovered that 36% of Americans—including 61% of young adults—feel serious loneliness. Perhaps most striking: 47% say they sometimes or always feel their relationships are not meaningful, and 43% feel isolated from others.

This isn't just survey data. It's showing up in consumer behavior:

• Companion AI apps have 40+ million active users globally
• Pet adoption increased 110% during pandemic and hasn't declined
• Parasocial relationship platforms (Cameo, OnlyFans, Patreon) grew 340% from 2020-2024
• "Rent-a-friend" services are booming in Japan, Korea, and increasingly in Western markets
• Virtual reality social spaces have 12 million daily active users

People aren't just lonely. They're spending money trying to solve their loneliness.

Why This Matters for Marketers (Beyond the Obvious Revenue Opportunity)

The cynical response is: "Great, an underserved market with high willingness to pay and growing demand."

But here's what separates ethical marketing from exploitation: Lonely consumers are vulnerable consumers.

They're not making purchasing decisions from a position of power or rational evaluation. They're making decisions from a position of pain, seeking relief from a condition that materially harms their mental and physical health.

That vulnerability changes everything about how you should approach this market.

The Three Types of Loneliness-Driven Purchasing

Not all loneliness spending is the same. Understanding these categories helps you identify where your brand might play a legitimate, helpful role—and where you risk exploitation.

Type 1: Connection Substitutes (High Risk of Exploitation)

These are products or services that explicitly replace human connection with commercial transactions.

Examples:

• AI companion apps that simulate romantic relationships
• Parasocial platforms where fans pay for simulated intimacy with creators
• "Girlfriend/boyfriend experience" services
• Chatbots designed to provide emotional support

The ethical problem: These don't solve loneliness. They monetize it. They provide temporary relief while potentially preventing people from developing actual relationships.

If your brand operates here: You have a responsibility to be honest about what you're providing. You're offering temporary comfort, not connection. You should actively encourage users to build real relationships, not just consume your service indefinitely.

Type 2: Connection Facilitators (Lower Risk, Higher Value)

These are products or services that help people build genuine connections with other humans.

Examples:

• Community platforms that bring people together around shared interests
• Local activity groups and experience-based services
• Co-working spaces and third places that facilitate organic interaction
• Hobby-based subscription boxes that include community access
• Apps that help people maintain existing friendships (shared photo albums, group planning tools)

The ethical opportunity: These address loneliness by making real connection more accessible, not by replacing it.

If your brand operates here: Your success metric shouldn't be engagement with your platform—it should be relationships formed through your platform. You should actively measure whether people are making real friends, not just spending more time in your app.

Type 3: Parallel Experience Products (Moderate Risk)

These are products or services that provide comfort in solitude without claiming to replace connection.

Examples:

• Streaming services and entertainment that make being alone more pleasant
• Products marketed for solo activities (single-serve meals, individual travel packages)
• Comfort products explicitly for self-care and solitude
• Pets and pet-related services

The ethical balance: These don't pretend to solve loneliness, but they make isolation more comfortable—which could either help people cope until they can build connections, or make isolation feel acceptable enough that they stop trying to connect.

If your brand operates here: Be honest about what you're offering. "Great company when you're alone" is different from "you won't need anyone else." The former acknowledges the human need for connection while providing comfort; the latter suggests isolation is fine.

What Lonely Consumers Actually Need (And How Brands Can Help)

Here's what research tells us about what actually helps lonely people:

They don't need more entertainment. Lonely people have plenty of ways to distract themselves. Entertainment makes loneliness bearable; it doesn't solve it.

They need low-stakes opportunities for genuine interaction. The hardest part of loneliness is that when you're out of practice with connection, social interaction feels risky and exhausting. What helps is structured, low-pressure opportunities to be around people without high social demands.

They need reasons to leave their homes regularly. Habits and routines that get lonely people into spaces where connection might happen organically.

They need permission to be imperfect at socializing. Loneliness often comes with social anxiety. What helps is environments where awkwardness is okay and failure isn't fatal.

They need bridges to deeper connection. Superficial interaction is a starting point, but what lonely people actually need are relationships that develop into genuine friendship or community.

How brands can help (ethically):

Create third places. Physical or virtual spaces where people can be together without transactional pressure. Coffee shops understood this before loneliness was named as an epidemic.

Build communities around shared interests, not just your product. If you're a running shoe brand, create running groups. If you're a cooking brand, facilitate cooking classes where people actually interact. Make the product secondary to the connection.

Design for serendipitous interaction. Build features that help people discover others with shared interests, values, or experiences. Make introduction less awkward by giving people context and common ground.

Reward connection, not just engagement. If your metrics only measure time spent or content consumed, you're optimizing for isolation. Measure whether people are forming relationships.

Be honest about what you're selling. If you're providing comfort in solitude, say so. If you're facilitating connection, prove it. Don't claim to solve loneliness if you're just monetizing it.

Case Studies: Brands Getting This Right (And Wrong)

Here are some dos and don'ts.

Getting It Right: REI's Outdoor Programs

REI runs thousands of local outdoor activities—hikes, kayaking, climbing—that bring people together around shared experiences. The activities are priced at cost or slight loss. The goal isn't direct revenue from events; it's creating community that makes people want to continue outdoor activities and (secondarily) buy gear.

Why this works: They're facilitating genuine connection around shared interests. People come for hiking, stay for the friendships formed. REI benefits from brand loyalty, but they've earned it by actually helping people connect.

Getting It Right: Discord's Community-First Design

Discord could have optimized for individual engagement metrics. Instead, they optimized for community health—tools that help moderators build safe spaces, features that facilitate collaboration, and designs that encourage people to create together, not just consume together.

Why this works: They recognized early that their value wasn't in keeping people on Discord—it was in helping people build real communities. They monetize through server boosting and premium features, but their core metric is "are communities thriving?"

Getting It Wrong: Companion AI Apps

Multiple AI companion apps market themselves as solutions to loneliness, offering "relationships" with chatbots that learn your preferences and provide unconditional positive regard. Some charge $200+ annually for premium features.

Why this fails ethically: They provide temporary emotional relief while potentially preventing users from developing actual social skills or seeking real relationships. They profit from extended isolation, not from helping people connect with others.

Some apps have started adding features that encourage users to eventually build real relationships—setting that as a goal, celebrating when users report making human friends. That's an improvement, but the core model remains problematic.

Getting It Wrong: Performative Community

Multiple brands launched "communities" that were really just customer engagement platforms—Discord servers or Facebook groups where the brand posted content and customers commented, but no real peer-to-peer relationships formed.

Why this fails: Calling it "community" while designing it as a marketing channel is dishonest. Real community is member-to-member connection. These were broadcast channels with comment sections.

The Marketing Ethics Framework for Loneliness Economy

If your brand operates in any space where loneliness is a factor—and increasingly, that's most consumer brands—here's an ethical framework for decision-making:

Question 1: Are we solving loneliness or monetizing it?

Solving means helping people build genuine connections with other humans. Monetizing means profiting from their isolation without improving their relational health.

Question 2: Could extended use of our product make loneliness worse?

If someone uses your product heavily for a year, are they more or less likely to have meaningful relationships? Be honest. If your product is most valuable to people who are isolated and losing value as people build real connections, you're not helping—you're creating dependency.

Question 3: Are we being honest about what we provide?

Don't market temporary comfort as if it's genuine connection. Don't market parasocial relationships as if they're real friendships. Don't market entertainment as if it's community.

Question 4: Are we measuring what actually matters?

Engagement metrics don't tell you if you're helping. You need to measure: Are users building relationships through our platform? Are they reporting improved social wellbeing? Are they eventually needing us less because they've built connections elsewhere?

Question 5: Would we be proud if our most isolated, vulnerable user's story became public?

That person using your product as their primary social outlet—are they better off because of your product, or are you profiting from their pain without helping them?

Practical Strategies for Marketing to Lonely Consumers (Ethically)

If you're genuinely trying to help, not exploit, here's what works:

1. Make Community Features Core, Not Add-Ons

Don't bolt community onto your product as an engagement feature. Design your product to facilitate connection from the beginning. If community feels like an afterthought, it probably is.

2. Celebrate Graduations, Not Just Engagement

When someone makes friends through your platform and doesn't need you as much anymore, celebrate that publicly. Show that your success metric is human flourishing, not product dependency.

3. Partner With Organizations Addressing Social Isolation

Work with non-profits, community organizations, and mental health advocates who are genuinely trying to address loneliness. Listen to them about whether your product helps or harms.

4. Design for Accessibility

Lonely people often struggle with social anxiety, neurodivergence, physical limitations, or economic constraints. Design your connection-facilitating features to be accessible to people who find typical social spaces challenging.

5. Build Features That Help People Maintain Relationships, Not Just Form Them

The hardest part of combating loneliness isn't meeting people—it's maintaining friendships over time. Tools that help people stay connected, remember important dates, plan get-togethers, or maintain long-distance friendships address real needs.

6. Be Transparent About Your Business Model

If you profit more when people are isolated, admit it and actively work to mitigate that misalignment. If you profit more when people are connected, show that in your metrics and messaging.

The Bottom Line: Opportunity With Responsibility

The Loneliness Economy is real. It's growing. There's money to be made.

But unlike most market opportunities, this one comes with profound ethical weight. You're not just selling products to consumers. You're interacting with people in pain, seeking relief from a condition that shortens their lives and diminishes their wellbeing.

You can approach this market in two ways:

You can see lonely people as vulnerable consumers to extract value from—offering them substitutes for connection that keep them dependent and isolated while monetizing their pain.

Or you can see them as humans who deserve genuine help—building products and services that actually facilitate real connection, make community more accessible, and measure success by whether people's lives improve, not just whether they keep paying you.

The market will support either approach in the short term. Exploiting loneliness is profitable.

But only one approach lets you sleep at night. Only one approach builds brands that people trust and respect. Only one approach creates value that compounds instead of extracting value that depletes.

The Loneliness Economy is a test of what kind of marketer you want to be.

What will you choose?

Want to build marketing strategies that address loneliness ethically? Winsome's consulting practice helps brands navigate the complex intersection of market opportunity and social responsibility. We'll help you assess whether your approach genuinely helps or potentially exploits, and build strategies that create real value for isolated consumers while building sustainable brand equity. Let's talk about marketing with integrity in the Loneliness Economy.