Quote from: maku on January 24, 2017, 07:40:58 PM

Quote from: traderMax on January 24, 2017, 07:32:30 PM

In fact, it is possible for someone who is successful in a good network marketing business to earn millions of dollars. But most people in MLM companies can not make money. Not all MLM companies are fraudulent. But most MLM companies use the ponzi system. MLM firms that use the ponzi system are fraudsters.

It doesn't matter if there is 1 of 10 MLM company which is legit. This whole market is filled with exploits and is based a controversial, pyramid-shaped marketing strategy.
Do we really need something like this associated with Bitcoin? In the end it will only build fake assertion that Bitcoin is good only for fraudulent schemes like MLM payments.

If you take a "pyramid" and turn it upside down you get a funnel. Bitcoin's problem now is that it is filled with a different kind of "fraudster" (i.e. the speculator).. I made out quite well as I bought in at $10 and lived off of it for over two years. But just getting a bunch a greedy "get rich quick" types getting into Bitcoin is just as much a "ponzi scheme" as there ever was.

What I've said from the beginning is that Bitcoin needs to enable the average person to get some which usually involves some way for them to earn it. Apart from changing all the employment tax laws, the insurances, the escrows etc. associated with "normal" employee arrangement Bitcoin's use to pay workers is doomed. No business is going to go through all that just to pay them with Bitcoin (unless they are making a ton of Bitcoin profits, then they would do that instead of converting to fiat).

So, while I appreciate all the anti-MLM sentiment, it is just a tool after all. So much of your scathing ridicule sounds very much like the ignorance that comes out against Bitcoin from people who know nothing about it but are "experts". MLM (not the illegal pyramid scheme -they ARE different) is a very legitimate way to accomplish what many Bitcoin enthusiasts at least claim they are in favor of (democratizing wealth). The greedy speculator Bitcoin user is not after that, of course, but MLM is a way for someone with little or no capital to get started in their own business. Certainly the failure rate is high but so isn't the failure rate in regular startups high. And, with MLM, you most often start with someone with little (if any) actual business experience or knowledge.

The advantage of the MLM arrangement to the organizer is the savings in cost of hiring all the sales and support staff and the speed and scale at which it can be launched. I see MLM as a way for Bitcoin companies to actually break free from the Central Banks. And MLM created properly and fairly is a contractual relationship. If the contract is clear (not like the DAO that lost 50 million of investor's money) then an MLM will compensate those that actually provide value to the organization a growing stake in the success. An added "natural fit" with Bitcoin is that much more of the MLM "contract" can now be encoded in smart contracts and it can enable the income opportunities globally. I think that is all a good thing.

Compare that to the "employee" serfdom that corporations now provide I would much rather have the freedom to achieve according to my work rather than bank on the fraudulent lies and greed of corporations. Trump is missing the real issue when he talks about bringing back "jobs". The truth is that corporations have not only stabbed their workers in the back, they have repeatedly twisted the knife around. All those corporations that he got to "stay" here are created for one purpose and one purpose only ... to make profits. They stay if they make more profits, and, they leave if that is where the profits are. So, go be an employee for those assholes all you want and whine against MLMs all you want, you're ignorant and don't know what the hell you are talking about. Period.