I work as a web dev, FE/BE, and company I currently work in took a project that is basically some kind of MLM structured business. It’s a challenge to do such project, not only from dev perspective, but also morally I’m not sure if I’m okay with it.

My question is - what do you think about MLM structures in companies ? Is it scam based business or is there something that I’m missing ?

It’s not decided yet if it will be binary or turnover based, but what is your experience with those two types of management system ?- from a technical perspective or product seller perspective. Thank you.

Have you ever worked for MLM company before? What was you experience ?

  • gh0stcassette@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    1 year ago

    Multi-level marketing is a kind of pyramid scheme, they’re only legal because existing anti-pyramid scheme laws only prohibit “businesses” that don’t actually sell any products, and make all of their money through recruitment.

    MLMs get around this by recruiting people to “sell” products, but recruits must pay for them in advance (almost always at a massive markup) and the products are typically so overpriced and/or poorly made that many of them go unsold.

    So, almost all of the profit of those at the top of the pyramid comes from their downstream recruits recruiting more people to “sell” the product, even though product sales are completely unrelated to the success of the scheme as a whole.

    • Scew@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      existing anti-pyramid scheme laws only prohibit “businesses” that don’t actually sell any products, and make all of their money through recruitment.

      So like… NFT communities?

      • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Hey hey hey let’s not get ahead of ourselves. NFTs aren’t pyramid schemes - Digital goods still count as a product.

        They’re money laundering. Clear difference.