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I worked at an “MLM” (we called it Direct Sales) SaaS company for a decade. We provided an e-commerce and commissions platform for many of these companies that

I worked at an “MLM” (we called it Direct Sales) SaaS company for a decade. We provided an e-commerce and commissions platform for many of these companies that you’ve probably heard of. I’m well aware of the criticisms of the industry but it surprises me that no one ever tells the story of the hundreds or thousands of women in each of these organizations that are variously getting rich, making a living, or getting decent side money doing this. Maybe they’re all exploiting the women in their down lines. Fair. But why are people reluctant to tell their stories? I promise you - with the women at the top, there’s a lot of cocaine and sex and wild stories to tell. But that doesn’t seem to be enough of a draw for anyone to show a balanced picture.

freetime2 4y ago
> I promise you - with the women at the top, there’s a lot of cocaine and sex and wild stories to tell. Damn - now you’ve piqued my interest. Someone needs to make a “Wolf of Wall Street” movie but for Amway.
- nsxwolf 4y ago
  There was a series with Kirsten Dunst named “On Becoming a God in Central Florida” about the subject but somehow it didn’t grab me in the first couple episodes. It looked like yet another look at the industry from the bottom up, where the more interesting view is from the top down.
n1b0m 4y ago
There’s been a documentary about LuLaRoe [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/15/lularich-lularoe-amazon-docuseries https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/15/lularic...
lozenge 4y ago
They aren't going to talk are they? But I think the Lularoe documentary covered some of this.
netrus 4y ago
Maybe because MLM advocates tell these stories 24/7, both in media and private conversation? Why does no one talk about Madoff actually being a great success (for a while), at least for himself and the people around him? It's easy to fall for these schemes, and there is no incentive to talk about the failures - so most you hear are the success stories.
maxbond 4y ago
How do you feel about your time working at that company?
- nsxwolf 4y ago
  Fine. It taught me a lot about enterprise Java, bought me a house and paid for my kids education.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    All great stuff. Do you think MLMs are harmful? (I'm just curious about your perspective because I couldn't work at a place like that, so I'm trying to understand. I'm not looking to pass judgement or get into an argument.)
    - nsxwolf 4y ago
      I am not sure. When an MLM is new and hot, it grows rapidly and there’s a lot of success for a lot of people. But there’s always a lot of churn at the bottom level, and if the organization isn’t growing, it’s dying. I saw all this mostly from a detached view looking at tables in a SQL database, with the occasional glimpse of in person convention Bacchanalia. Many of my friendships and much of my professional network were forged in my 20s in this industry so this colors a lot of my views.
      - maxbond 4y ago
        For sure. Thank you for sharing. I'm not going to try and convince you of anything, but I'll offer my perspective to you. My guilty pleasure is watching MLM debunking videos, so I've happened to see a decent amount of MLM recruiting and training material. (I've known a couple people involved with MLMs, but not anyone I was close with, so I can't really say it's touched me much personally.) Honestly I find it chilling. It's not just how they are manipulative with the people in the MLM, but how they coach them into manipulating their friends and family. They give them scripts to twist the language of love and support into cash transactions. This is a tame example but the only one that's top of mind at the moment. I was watching a video the other day, and they said something like, "your friends and family need to understand that your launch party is a big deal. You're launching a business, and they need to be there to support you. Ask them if you can count on them to be there to support you." And I just can't help but imagine getting a phone call from someone in my life, talking about how excited they are about something new they're up to, and then the feeling of dread as I realize what's happening. "Can I count on you to be there to support me?" How do you respond to that? If you agree, you're enabling them to make a terrible decision, at what's probably the best time for them to turn back. If you refuse, you're hurting their feelings and pushing them away, into the waiting arms of their manipulators, and the line between MLM and cult can be pretty blurry.
moremetadata 4y ago
>Maybe they’re all exploiting the women in their down lines. Fair. But why are people reluctant to tell their stories? Fair? You have just explained that its fair for the workers at the lowest and lower tiers of any company to be exploited. MLM is just a type of business, Ann Summers in the UK and Ann Summers parties is another example besides the US Mary Kay, how ever unlike Mary Kay, Ann Summer parties were exposing kids to sex toys and lingerie, especially as some of the poorest lived in small homes with no where to hide the "sales catalogues" and the toys, or the disruptions to kids that ensued when you got a group of sex starved women together round a house. Remember the world hysteria comes from the Greek word hystera which means uterus as in hysterectomy. In general the MLM's that tend to work is because they rely on the sales persons buying into said products. Female MLM selling female jewellery, I think there was a jewellery company called Pandora that did this, female MLM selling cosmetics eg Avon, Vorwerk vacuum cleaners being another. Thing with MLM is its just a particular way of selling products, some are like franchises like McDonalds in that you have to hand over money before accessing the brand's products to sell on. Some are door to door, others are established in their own bricks and mortar retail outlet of sorts, other online only, or sometimes both. MLM is just one way of getting staff lock in and selling to the public. IS it any more exploitative than other methods? Thats a legislation issue, just like uber and the london black cab drivers have found out. Politicians can screw over groups of people with the ballot box.
- maxbond 4y ago
  I think they meant, "that's a fair criticism" and not "exploitation is fair."
busterarm 4y ago
The lottery has some winners too. Mostly losers though.
anon7725 4y ago
> no one ever tells the story of the hundreds or thousands of women in each of these organizations that are variously getting rich, making a living, or getting decent side money doing this. Because in these scale-free networks, each incremental person who is successful harms incrementally more people. For the network to grow, it must produce an ever-expanding long tail of losers. Nothing to celebrate there.
UncleMeat 4y ago
There are people getting rich. They are getting rich off of the poverty and misery of the people below them. This isn't a story of empowerment and success. It is a story of grift, abuse, and greed.

freetime2 4y ago

> I promise you - with the women at the top, there’s a lot of cocaine and sex and wild stories to tell. Damn - now you’ve piqued my interest. Someone needs to make a “Wolf of Wall Street” movie but for Amway.

nsxwolf 4y ago
There was a series with Kirsten Dunst named “On Becoming a God in Central Florida” about the subject but somehow it didn’t grab me in the first couple episodes. It looked like yet another look at the industry from the bottom up, where the more interesting view is from the top down.

n1b0m 4y ago

There’s been a documentary about LuLaRoe [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/15/lularich-lularoe-amazon-docuseries https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/15/lularic...

lozenge 4y ago

They aren't going to talk are they? But I think the Lularoe documentary covered some of this.

netrus 4y ago

Maybe because MLM advocates tell these stories 24/7, both in media and private conversation? Why does no one talk about Madoff actually being a great success (for a while), at least for himself and the people around him? It's easy to fall for these schemes, and there is no incentive to talk about the failures - so most you hear are the success stories.

maxbond 4y ago

How do you feel about your time working at that company?

nsxwolf 4y ago
Fine. It taught me a lot about enterprise Java, bought me a house and paid for my kids education.
- maxbond 4y ago
  All great stuff. Do you think MLMs are harmful? (I'm just curious about your perspective because I couldn't work at a place like that, so I'm trying to understand. I'm not looking to pass judgement or get into an argument.)
  - nsxwolf 4y ago
    I am not sure. When an MLM is new and hot, it grows rapidly and there’s a lot of success for a lot of people. But there’s always a lot of churn at the bottom level, and if the organization isn’t growing, it’s dying. I saw all this mostly from a detached view looking at tables in a SQL database, with the occasional glimpse of in person convention Bacchanalia. Many of my friendships and much of my professional network were forged in my 20s in this industry so this colors a lot of my views.
    - maxbond 4y ago
      For sure. Thank you for sharing. I'm not going to try and convince you of anything, but I'll offer my perspective to you. My guilty pleasure is watching MLM debunking videos, so I've happened to see a decent amount of MLM recruiting and training material. (I've known a couple people involved with MLMs, but not anyone I was close with, so I can't really say it's touched me much personally.) Honestly I find it chilling. It's not just how they are manipulative with the people in the MLM, but how they coach them into manipulating their friends and family. They give them scripts to twist the language of love and support into cash transactions. This is a tame example but the only one that's top of mind at the moment. I was watching a video the other day, and they said something like, "your friends and family need to understand that your launch party is a big deal. You're launching a business, and they need to be there to support you. Ask them if you can count on them to be there to support you." And I just can't help but imagine getting a phone call from someone in my life, talking about how excited they are about something new they're up to, and then the feeling of dread as I realize what's happening. "Can I count on you to be there to support me?" How do you respond to that? If you agree, you're enabling them to make a terrible decision, at what's probably the best time for them to turn back. If you refuse, you're hurting their feelings and pushing them away, into the waiting arms of their manipulators, and the line between MLM and cult can be pretty blurry.

moremetadata 4y ago

>Maybe they’re all exploiting the women in their down lines. Fair. But why are people reluctant to tell their stories? Fair? You have just explained that its fair for the workers at the lowest and lower tiers of any company to be exploited. MLM is just a type of business, Ann Summers in the UK and Ann Summers parties is another example besides the US Mary Kay, how ever unlike Mary Kay, Ann Summer parties were exposing kids to sex toys and lingerie, especially as some of the poorest lived in small homes with no where to hide the "sales catalogues" and the toys, or the disruptions to kids that ensued when you got a group of sex starved women together round a house. Remember the world hysteria comes from the Greek word hystera which means uterus as in hysterectomy. In general the MLM's that tend to work is because they rely on the sales persons buying into said products. Female MLM selling female jewellery, I think there was a jewellery company called Pandora that did this, female MLM selling cosmetics eg Avon, Vorwerk vacuum cleaners being another. Thing with MLM is its just a particular way of selling products, some are like franchises like McDonalds in that you have to hand over money before accessing the brand's products to sell on. Some are door to door, others are established in their own bricks and mortar retail outlet of sorts, other online only, or sometimes both. MLM is just one way of getting staff lock in and selling to the public. IS it any more exploitative than other methods? Thats a legislation issue, just like uber and the london black cab drivers have found out. Politicians can screw over groups of people with the ballot box.

maxbond 4y ago
I think they meant, "that's a fair criticism" and not "exploitation is fair."

busterarm 4y ago

The lottery has some winners too. Mostly losers though.

anon7725 4y ago

> no one ever tells the story of the hundreds or thousands of women in each of these organizations that are variously getting rich, making a living, or getting decent side money doing this. Because in these scale-free networks, each incremental person who is successful harms incrementally more people. For the network to grow, it must produce an ever-expanding long tail of losers. Nothing to celebrate there.

UncleMeat 4y ago

There are people getting rich. They are getting rich off of the poverty and misery of the people below them. This isn't a story of empowerment and success. It is a story of grift, abuse, and greed.