Well honestly MLM companies real way of earning money is not really about their products but on how many people join and sign up to them as recruits to other people, which is called their upline. There are no real losers here except when the company goes bust or you as a person won't be active recruiting other people. The only bad thing I see about MLM or Networking is that some people try to blind people with promises of being rich so that they can join to be part of their downline and then later on leave them without any help or whatsoever.
Yes,
there you can actually earn money unlike pyramids. But there you need to work hard and invite new people. Many promise a very huge income, but they themselves have not even reached this level. I do not like this pattern of earnings.
I don't know about how real is earning money in MLM schemes (I don't participate in any)
But you either don't know what such a scheme essentially amounts to or deliberately try to make it look as if MLM had nothing to do with them, while in fact it is the embodiment or epitome of a pyramid scheme. It may be hidden deep inside and not seen to the naked eye, but its main characteristic, i.e. receiving (some part of) the money from the people you recruit is nevertheless still present. I'm utterly curious how many people cannot see that