I think that diagnostic labels in general are nonsense. Their main purpose is to aid the section of the pharmaceutical industry that produces psychotropic medications (because more labels means more drugs prescribed). Otherwise they can be used as weapons against a person legally and professionally.
I think they are also dehumanizing as well. Once you're given a particular label, clinicians will come to see you as that label instead of as a person. These labels do a poor job of capturing all of the symptoms or issues a person may be experiencing, and they also ignore life circumstances of that person. That is because they do not care about what a person is dealing with or what really caused the issue; all they care about is reducing that person to problem with a particular solution, namely medication.
I think treatment should be focused around symptoms instead of these overarching often heavy stigmatized labels. And to answer the question, I do not really see the value in diagnosing people via the internet or even in person really regardless of whether or not one is a clinician (aside from getting insurance to pay of course). The problem is that therapists and doctors often deal with heavy caseloads and do not have time to actually get to know a person, so it is easier to see them a little bit and slap a label on them, then throw one of the supposedly easy fixes at them like CBT or medication. It is way too haphazard to catch the nuances of what people are dealing with and treat them appropriately, though I understand why many clinicians don't have much of a choice.
