It sounds like you've had an awful experience with CBT. Whatever be the therapy, the skill and experience of the therapist matters a lot too. From what you've said, I get the feeling that you think (or experienced) that CBT is all goals, task and work without being properly heard or understood. That is absolutely not so. CBT is built upon the older "talk" therapies, including Behaviour therapy. And listening and empathising with the patient is very much an important part of it too.

Yes, it is important to understand the "current state of affairs" and "desired state of affairs" for goal setting (again, something common in most "talk" therapies, and definitely not a new feature of CBT). But that doesn't mean that the moment you meet a CBT therapist, they give you a pad and ask you to write down these things - good therapists actually spend the first one or two sessions talking to you to understand your issues, figure out your personality, explore your problems to diagnose you, clarify your concerns, and try and establish a rapport and boundary with you. (The whole basis of "talk" therapies is that talking and listening does qualitatively help people - and hence it is an integral part of CBT too).

> I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people who seek therapy don't really have any major psychological issues, but are simply in need of some advice and support - CBT would be greatly exploiting that because there isn't even a test whether or not you need CBT - it's just assumed that it's a one-size-fits-all solution.

Depression and anxiety are the "common cold" of mental health - everyone of us experiences it more than once in our lifetime. So yes, you would be partly right in saying people who are mildly to moderately depressed and anxious "just need some support and advise". Luckily, this is where CBT really shines - it can cure depression and anxiety without any medication (and that's been validated in many studies - in fact, it was found that not only is CBT equally as effective as anti-depressants, it is also more long-lasting than anti-depressant medication - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15809409/ ).

> CBT would be greatly exploiting that because there isn't even a test whether or not you need CBT

While CBT has recently gained popularity as a self-help treatment mode, note that it is actually an empirically investigated systemic psychological treatment with various "schools of thoughts" including ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), DBT (dialectic behaviour therapy), ST (schema therapy) CT (cognitive therapy). And there are CT diagnostics tests, like the Burns Depression Checklist or the Burns Anxiety Inventory test, that are used to determine depression and anxiety (respectively) to determine if someone needs CBT. On the more advanced issues, a psychiatrist has to diagnose if there are other serious issues (like personality disorders) at play before the treatment modality is decided. So yes, while you are absolutely right that CBT is not a "one-size-fits-all" solution, only an unethical therapist would try and treat you with CBT without proper diagnosis.

While the media may portray that therapists want to keep you dependent and talking with them forever (to earn money) the reality is that a good therapists will actually recommend you to someone else if they feel you aren't progressing under their care.