My suspicions
When it comes to business, I want to be shown the money. I feel much more comfortable knowing how a business is making its profit than when it seems like they cannot.
So when a company offers me a product they simply can’t be making a profit on, or suggests they’re going to give me a “free iPad just for registering!” I am deeply suspicious. I am not going to get a free iPad, you see, and in exchange they want something valuable from me. Probably my demographic information for which, if I have to go through the trouble of providing for them, I’d like to actually be compensated, thanks.
In other words, don’t include me on email, facebook or twitter lists of people who would like to participate in something like that. In fact, I pretty much hate how apps work in facebook in the first place, and don’t use any. You can’t see what someone has sent without installing an app, you can’t expect an app to have the minimum access to your data possible to do its job, and most of them insist that you spam your friends in order to get any fun out of it.
In fact, I feel the same way about Cut-co knives, “door to door” sales, and all multi-level marketing. If you have your own personal business that you have started, by all means tell me and I will do my best to patronize it, but if you are selling not only someone else’s knives but also “the chance to start your own business!” I do not want to be involved. And I’m going to feel really shitty when I tell you why.
I’m not mad, mind you :) Get your kicks however you’d like! But I’m going to ignore it, and if I’m bombarded by it six times a day, I may stop reading you. Still love you, but I already have way, way way too much to read.
Bravo! I feel the same way. Do not try to sell your overpriced mass-produced pyramid scheme shit to me and DO NOT try to become my pimp by badgering me to help you make money by selling it myself.
I don’t particularly want to engage people on whether something is mass-produced or overpriced, nor on whether multi-level marketing is the same as a pyramid scheme. While I believe it is, those are fights that people are trained to engage in in order to change minds.
I simply feel like my friends are being used by other people in a way I don’t approve of or want to be involved in.
I also know I’m more sensitive to “pimp” and “whore” than most people – I’m not looking to outrage those friends who are surviving through a sales job. I’m just not at all interested in doing the same.
That’s fine. I wasn’t trying to say that you personally felt that way; but I do. When you are involved in a business model where you are required to pressure your friends to sell your product through parties or direct sales so you can profit from their work, it feels like pimping to me.
Nevermind that I have known a ton of people who have been involved in all manner of multi-level marketing setups and none of them have ever done more than break even at at no matter how much effort they put into it.
My Theory on MLM is simple… if the product is good enough (as compared to the rest of the market) for me to buy it at that price and be so happy that I did that I will tell my friends anyway then it is worth joining.
If the only reason to join an mlm is to get rich then you wont.
To date, I’ve found two MLM’s that looked to meet this criteria at first but in the end failed to meet my expectations of their product.
Amen! I’m currently getting really sick of being asked to join a group or be a fan of something that’s supposed to win somebody something or another. a) I don’t *believe* any of this is going to get everyone and b) it’s a pyramid scheme piece of bull that no doubt, as you say, *actually* wants something for people, and that’s unrelated to whatever it is promising. I have been trying to formulate the right text for a post on facebook to say “if you’re going to do this, count me out” because it’s worse than pointless, it’s using people.
like you said.
You really are a smart guys, you know that?
Amen, brutha! I agree 100% I hate Facebook apps, games, and all of that stuff. Thank goodness for the “block” feature.
That is the one thing I loathe about Facebook.
Regarding Facebook apps, I was reading a Wired article recently about a guy who tried to go completely off the grid with people trying to find him for a reward. I think it illustrated nicely how an application seemingly set up for one purpose can serve an ulterior motive – in this case, tracking the IP addresses of the people who join and access the application.
But I’ve got this bridge in San Francisco and if you just chip in a little bit you can help me turn it into a toll bridge…. so many people use it… there is so much money to be made ;)
Wait a minute. I only clicked over here because you promised me a new iPhone. JERK.