8 ms·

What gets me is; if this was a money making opportunity, and it truly is as simple as they make it out to be, aren’t they literally creating their own competito

What gets me is; if this was a money making opportunity, and it truly is as simple as they make it out to be, aren’t they literally creating their own competitors in this space by revealing their secret? I’m sure the argument is something like “the market is so vast, that helping others do the same won’t affect my income stream”, but that suggests The correct answer is to scale up, not populate the landscape with completion.

Joker_vD 4y ago
The argument can also be that it actually benefits them by making other people richer and therefore, increasing the amount of their own customers (and the amount of money those customers are willing to spend). insert a random comment about how "market economy is not a zero-sum game"
- derefr 4y ago
  As the recent dive in the British economy proves, increasing spending is not necessarily good for a market ;)
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
Yes. It turns out that there’s a whole lot of aspects of their scheme that would turn off any informed rational person. But there’s enough people who fail that test to keep a constant flow of new customers buying in to their scheme.
- masklinn 4y ago
  In fact much as with “obvious” scams, this becomes a feature: non-marks deselect themselves from the pool at no cost to the scammer, which means the scammer has a much higher average “prospect quality” than a random sampling would give.
  - Freak_NL 4y ago
    It's sort of like the spelling and grammar mistakes in spam mail.
narag 4y ago
Well, it's only logical: what they propose is barely legal and sooner or later, more sooner than later, the scheme will be burnt, so it's better to teach others to make a quick buck than staying in the same place for too long.
- dspillett 4y ago
  I don't think legality is a significant part of the problem – I simply doubt there is really a lot to make regardless of legality. Most get-rich-quick schemes are really either “make a few pennies here or there, a few $/€/£ if you are lucky, a few 100 if very lucky” or “make-a-bit-slowly-with-lots-of-effort” or both. The rest not included in that “most” are even more completely bunkum, you'll never make anything unless maybe you join the pyramid and resell the scheme. There is more easy money to be made selling make-money-easily schemes to those that lack critical thinking, than there is to be made via the schemes themselves. Even if no one you sell the scheme to makes anything, even if they all make a loss in the grand scheme of things, the scheme seller still has some revenue. A scheme seeming illegal/immoral/both might make some marks easier to catch, as they think they are being clever by knowing that crime does in fact sometimes pay so their guard is further lowered due to confirmation bias on this matter.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  What's barely legal about commissioning and selling badly written books? I might point to a dozen other parts of the situation as "barely legal scam", but why that part?
lupire 4y ago
They are so rich that they are retired but want to pay it forward. But it's not free because they only want to teach people who take it seriously and respect the idea.
- monktastic1 4y ago
  Can't tell if this is a joke, but the most likely explanation isn't nearly so noble. They realize that the stream for this particular scam has already run dry (thanks to Audible catching on), but realize that others don't know that yet.
mughinn 4y ago
As far as I understood from the video, the Mikkelsen Twins did get rich from that money making scheme, until Audible basically found out and started trying to stop them (most of the books they "published" are not in the page anymore). They milked the cow dry then they made a money making course and created a new way to get money And now with the competition basically no one who bought their course can actually make money

Joker_vD 4y ago

The argument can also be that it actually benefits them by making other people richer and therefore, increasing the amount of their own customers (and the amount of money those customers are willing to spend). insert a random comment about how "market economy is not a zero-sum game"

derefr 4y ago
As the recent dive in the British economy proves, increasing spending is not necessarily good for a market ;)

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

Yes. It turns out that there’s a whole lot of aspects of their scheme that would turn off any informed rational person. But there’s enough people who fail that test to keep a constant flow of new customers buying in to their scheme.

masklinn 4y ago
In fact much as with “obvious” scams, this becomes a feature: non-marks deselect themselves from the pool at no cost to the scammer, which means the scammer has a much higher average “prospect quality” than a random sampling would give.
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  It's sort of like the spelling and grammar mistakes in spam mail.

narag 4y ago

Well, it's only logical: what they propose is barely legal and sooner or later, more sooner than later, the scheme will be burnt, so it's better to teach others to make a quick buck than staying in the same place for too long.

dspillett 4y ago
I don't think legality is a significant part of the problem – I simply doubt there is really a lot to make regardless of legality. Most get-rich-quick schemes are really either “make a few pennies here or there, a few $/€/£ if you are lucky, a few 100 if very lucky” or “make-a-bit-slowly-with-lots-of-effort” or both. The rest not included in that “most” are even more completely bunkum, you'll never make anything unless maybe you join the pyramid and resell the scheme. There is more easy money to be made selling make-money-easily schemes to those that lack critical thinking, than there is to be made via the schemes themselves. Even if no one you sell the scheme to makes anything, even if they all make a loss in the grand scheme of things, the scheme seller still has some revenue. A scheme seeming illegal/immoral/both might make some marks easier to catch, as they think they are being clever by knowing that crime does in fact sometimes pay so their guard is further lowered due to confirmation bias on this matter.
Dylan16807 4y ago
What's barely legal about commissioning and selling badly written books? I might point to a dozen other parts of the situation as "barely legal scam", but why that part?

lupire 4y ago

They are so rich that they are retired but want to pay it forward. But it's not free because they only want to teach people who take it seriously and respect the idea.

monktastic1 4y ago
Can't tell if this is a joke, but the most likely explanation isn't nearly so noble. They realize that the stream for this particular scam has already run dry (thanks to Audible catching on), but realize that others don't know that yet.

mughinn 4y ago

As far as I understood from the video, the Mikkelsen Twins did get rich from that money making scheme, until Audible basically found out and started trying to stop them (most of the books they "published" are not in the page anymore). They milked the cow dry then they made a money making course and created a new way to get money And now with the competition basically no one who bought their course can actually make money