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>But when it was founded 4 decades ago...there weren't any products like it on the market. Nonsense. There have been vitamins and protein drinks sold in store

by athms 6y ago

>But when it was founded 4 decades ago...there weren't any products like it on the market. Nonsense. There have been vitamins and protein drinks sold in stores for over 50 years. Every drug store and most grocery stores carried vitamins since the 1940s. The One-A-Day multivitamin brand appeared in 1943. My parents were born in the 1940s and they took vitamins as children. I was born in the 1960s and I took Flintstones Kids vitamins, which ere introduced in 1968. Protein powders started showing up in drug and health food stores in the 1950s with the advent of body building becoming popular. GNC was started in the 1930s and was in every major mall across America in the 1970s, and they sold protein drinks, both liquid and powder. Remember Charles Atlas? Probably not. There have been multiple health food fads throughout American history. Herbalife stays in business because people are gullible. The multi-level marketing business model appeals to our greed and fear of missing a good deal. None of the products offered by Tupperware, Avon, Mary Kay, Fuller Brush, Amway, and Primerica are unique in anyway and the only people getting rich are towards the top of the pyramid.

perl4ever 6y ago
I'm struck by the unwillingness of people to say they don't know what's going on. But total disagreement on what's going on implies nobody really knows. People have written an enormous amount on why HLF is/isn't a pyramid scheme. Yet it hasn't gone to zero yet. At the same time, it looks and smells fishy and people seem to agree the products are commodities. So how can it not be a scam? It seems to me like the logical inference is that there is something hidden below the surface and that even with all the time Ackman and others put into researching it, there's something not public sustaining it. Even if it's just a pyramid scheme, the mystery deepens, because some people who don't seem to be shills have written an unbelievable amount defending it.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  MLM = product sold by multiple levels of distributors. Pyramid scheme = an MLM in which most income at any level is from sales that end with lower-levels rather than ultimately ending with actual customers. The FTC investigated Herbalife in 2016, concluding in 2018, and determined that more than 80% of ultimate product sales were to individuals outside of their distributor network...even though their distributor figures were inflated by "distributors" that were just customers purchasing product for personal use at the highly-discounted distributor rate. Herbalife is an MLM, but it's not legally a pyramid scheme, and the agency that investigates this (the FTC) said as much in 2018. (It did, however, fine Herbalife $$$ for practices that would have resulted in Herbalife being a pyramid scheme if the majority of its product didn't actually get sold to non-distributors.)
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    I get that. I was just reading John Hempton's long blog post in defense of it, and someone in the comments pointed out that the bulletin board behind some people he photographed, was all about classes on MLM, not about health club type activities. So I'm saying, yes, at some level it checked out for him and the FTC, but I'm still left wondering if it is what it seems, ironically due to reading the long defense and feeling it had gaps.
    - csours 6y ago
      I read the defense as well, and the biggest gap to me was the people not in the room, literally. The people who show up to the club are happy enough, but not everyone shows up to the club.
gamblor956 6y ago
A bodybuilder like Charles Atlas or Arnold Schwarzenegger would not have been caught dead drinking protein shakes in the glory days of bodybuilding (i.e., the 1970s/1980s); they preferred real foods, and Atlas was a strong proponent of a milk-heavy diet (and even advocated for a milk-only diet during bulking phases). https://physicalculturestudy.com/2014/12/08/charles-atlass-special-secret-for-rapidly-building-enormous-power/ https://physicalculturestudy.com/2014/12/08/charles-atlass-s... Thus, 40 years ago (i.e., 1980), using protein powder for weight loss/body composition wasn't a big market. Herbalife created that market. GNC and others started selling protein powders for weight loss and bodybuilding after Herbalife proved the viability of the niche. (Note: protein powder is the cheapest form of protein...today. It wasn't back then. It was comparatively quite expensive. In the 80s, beef and chicken were far cheaper than protein powder.) If you want to debate exercise history you will want to pick a fight with someone who doesn't have GNC and other health companies as clients...
- athms 6y ago
  > A bodybuilder like Charles Atlas or Arnold Schwarzenegger would not have been caught dead drinking protein shakes in the glory days of bodybuilding The glory days for Charles Atlas was the 1920s to 1940s; he died in 1972. He had sponsorship deals for dietary supplements. >Thus, 40 years ago (i.e., 1980), using protein powder for weight loss/body composition wasn't a big market. It was a large market by the by the 1960s. Many famous bodybuilders from the 1920s through 1950s started advocating protein drinks made with dehydrated and pulverized beef, egg, and milk. All the fitness, bodybuilding, and martial arts magazines were filled with protein drink advertising in the 1960s and 1970s. Hell, even Chuck Norris was hawking this stuff in the 70s. You could walk into any GNC in the 1960s and buy this product. The only thing HerbalLife added was marketing, finding suckers to sell their products.

by athms 6y ago

perl4ever 6y ago

I'm struck by the unwillingness of people to say they don't know what's going on. But total disagreement on what's going on implies nobody really knows. People have written an enormous amount on why HLF is/isn't a pyramid scheme. Yet it hasn't gone to zero yet. At the same time, it looks and smells fishy and people seem to agree the products are commodities. So how can it not be a scam? It seems to me like the logical inference is that there is something hidden below the surface and that even with all the time Ackman and others put into researching it, there's something not public sustaining it. Even if it's just a pyramid scheme, the mystery deepens, because some people who don't seem to be shills have written an unbelievable amount defending it.

gamblor956 6y ago
MLM = product sold by multiple levels of distributors. Pyramid scheme = an MLM in which most income at any level is from sales that end with lower-levels rather than ultimately ending with actual customers. The FTC investigated Herbalife in 2016, concluding in 2018, and determined that more than 80% of ultimate product sales were to individuals outside of their distributor network...even though their distributor figures were inflated by "distributors" that were just customers purchasing product for personal use at the highly-discounted distributor rate. Herbalife is an MLM, but it's not legally a pyramid scheme, and the agency that investigates this (the FTC) said as much in 2018. (It did, however, fine Herbalife $$$ for practices that would have resulted in Herbalife being a pyramid scheme if the majority of its product didn't actually get sold to non-distributors.)
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I get that. I was just reading John Hempton's long blog post in defense of it, and someone in the comments pointed out that the bulletin board behind some people he photographed, was all about classes on MLM, not about health club type activities. So I'm saying, yes, at some level it checked out for him and the FTC, but I'm still left wondering if it is what it seems, ironically due to reading the long defense and feeling it had gaps.
  - csours 6y ago
    I read the defense as well, and the biggest gap to me was the people not in the room, literally. The people who show up to the club are happy enough, but not everyone shows up to the club.

gamblor956 6y ago

A bodybuilder like Charles Atlas or Arnold Schwarzenegger would not have been caught dead drinking protein shakes in the glory days of bodybuilding (i.e., the 1970s/1980s); they preferred real foods, and Atlas was a strong proponent of a milk-heavy diet (and even advocated for a milk-only diet during bulking phases). https://physicalculturestudy.com/2014/12/08/charles-atlass-special-secret-for-rapidly-building-enormous-power/ https://physicalculturestudy.com/2014/12/08/charles-atlass-s... Thus, 40 years ago (i.e., 1980), using protein powder for weight loss/body composition wasn't a big market. Herbalife created that market. GNC and others started selling protein powders for weight loss and bodybuilding after Herbalife proved the viability of the niche. (Note: protein powder is the cheapest form of protein...today. It wasn't back then. It was comparatively quite expensive. In the 80s, beef and chicken were far cheaper than protein powder.) If you want to debate exercise history you will want to pick a fight with someone who doesn't have GNC and other health companies as clients...

athms 6y ago
> A bodybuilder like Charles Atlas or Arnold Schwarzenegger would not have been caught dead drinking protein shakes in the glory days of bodybuilding The glory days for Charles Atlas was the 1920s to 1940s; he died in 1972. He had sponsorship deals for dietary supplements. >Thus, 40 years ago (i.e., 1980), using protein powder for weight loss/body composition wasn't a big market. It was a large market by the by the 1960s. Many famous bodybuilders from the 1920s through 1950s started advocating protein drinks made with dehydrated and pulverized beef, egg, and milk. All the fitness, bodybuilding, and martial arts magazines were filled with protein drink advertising in the 1960s and 1970s. Hell, even Chuck Norris was hawking this stuff in the 70s. You could walk into any GNC in the 1960s and buy this product. The only thing HerbalLife added was marketing, finding suckers to sell their products.