I don't disagree with self-help being nonsense. Most that I've read is certainly written to be authoritative when they're not, drawing on a fresh selection of recent 'scientific' studies that are really cherry-picked to fit the author's opinions.
So why not treat self-help as opinions? They might click with you or they might not, but in the end they represent someone else's thoughts of how the world works, not a general truth of the world. That's still valuable. Sure, some of those opinions can be popular and sell millions of copies (e.g. Carnegie), and yet are real useless for many readers. But is it really fair to say that they're awful and money-grabbing for that reason?
So why not treat self-help as opinions? They might click with you or they might not, but in the end they represent someone else's thoughts of how the world works, not a general truth of the world. That's still valuable. Sure, some of those opinions can be popular and sell millions of copies (e.g. Carnegie), and yet are real useless for many readers. But is it really fair to say that they're awful and money-grabbing for that reason?