
The MLM Epidemic in 13 Maps - encorekt
https://myradvocate.com/new-blog/the-mlm-epidemic-in-13-jaw-dropping-maps-2019-11-8
======
elil17
This article doesn’t dig into the details, but these companies are really
vicious. They aggressively recruit at my college and I’ve seen them to
convince students to take what they would have spent on next semesters tuition
and use it to buy “inventory” (i.e. more products than they’ll ever be able to
resell) instead. These things ruin people’s lives

~~~
jbob2000
How do you craft a law to make this illegal though? And then how do you
enforce the law? How do you bring these companies to justice?

A fool and his money are easily parted. If those students didn't blow their
tuition on MLM garbage, they'd have blown it on something else. I'm sure
there's a kid somewhere who blew his tuition making ridiculous option trades
based on something he read on r/wallstreetbets.

~~~
badrequest
Simple, if you receive income that is a royalty from the sale of products you
sold to the person who ultimately sold them, it's taxed at 100%.

~~~
mysterypie
If that were the law, then the MLM's simple workaround would be to pay you a
recruiting fee based on the success of the people you recruit. If the people
you recruit sell a lot, you get a bigger fee because you did a better job at
recruiting.

I imagine it'll be tough to craft a law to target MLMs because if it's too
broad it'll hit many kinds of legitimate business and if too narrow they'll
creatively bypass the rules.

~~~
learc83
The IRS deals with people trying to exploit loopholes like that all the time.
The law isn't a programming language.

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Spooky23
When I worked retail sales in the 90s there was an Amway cult meeting nearby.
Every few weeks, they would drop in after a pep-rally type thing and try to
waste your time looking at the most expensive thing and talk about their
amazing business. Then they'd drop the pitch (at the time it was about their
e-commerce business).

Once you ran into them, you could spot them. It was a mix of desperate mid-
life crisis guys looking for cash, clean-cut naive younger people, and
diligent moms starting a business. Really sad.

~~~
TomMckenny
Fun Fact: the current secretary of education is a multi-billionaire because
her family runs Amway.

~~~
throwaway5752
And her brother founded Blackwater Security. He tried to broker a backchannel
with Russia after the election
([https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/black...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-
putin-back-
channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html))

------
Scoundreller
I found « The Dream » podcast to be pretty good on the topic.

[https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stitcher/the-
dream](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stitcher/the-dream)

~~~
eli
Agreed. I’m not usually a huge podcast person, but this was a really
interesting look at the history through today of MLMs

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LanceH
I wrote and deleted a long response. The short version is that they can be
broken into two groups:

1\. Distributors are paying well over wholesale and their margins are much
closer to referral fees that really don't support the full retail effort.

2\. Distributors are paying closer to wholesale but are buying junk that
nobody actually wants. This is more like a ponzi scheme with items that
theoretically hold value.

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devmunchies
I wonder why MLM's are so rampant in the mountain west. I know "mormons" and
"sales experience from missionary work" but the analysis can go deeper. From
personal, anecdotal experience, a lot of these MLM people I've seen are moms.
Could it be that that area is so sales heavy that stay-at-home moms want to
run their own thing so they get into MLM on the side?

~~~
yellowapple
Having been raised Mormon, it ain't surprising in the slightest that so many
of these are concentrated in and around Utah/Idaho.

There are a multitude of factors at play here:

\- Like you mentioned, door-to-door proselytism translates well to door-to-
door sales.

\- Mormon communities tend to be very tight-knit and immediately trusting of
fellow Mormons, so once you have a critical mass of LDS followers selling your
"inverted funnel", it's gonna spread like wildfire.

\- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints actively discourages any
sort of rational individual thought, instead encouraging its members to "doubt
your doubts" and follow the Church without question. This ends up serving MLM
marketers well. The Church is America's longest-running and most-successful
MLM scheme; to your average Mormon, this is all very "normal".

\- The Church does its best to railroad women into being faithful wives to
their husbands and mothers to their children, which (as you touched on)
translates to emphasizing stay-at-home parenting over holding a full-time job.
This keeps Mormon women busy for a few years, but once those kids are in
school (and even moreso when those kids grow up and move out), there ain't a
whole lot to do at home. Mormon women - being human beings with free wills,
contrary to what the Church would want us to believe - are thus inclined to
take up part-time jobs, especially ones that they can do without compromising
the Mormon ideal of women-as-domestic-servants-to-their-husbands. MLM schemes
tick all the boxes, or at least so their marketing claims.

\- Middle America already has a strong predisposition toward distrusting
modern medicine/science, so appeals to "traditional" medicine tend to be
somewhat more effective.

~~~
Osiris
> The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints actively discourages any
> sort of rational individual thought

As an active member, I can say that this comment is untrue. The Church
actively encourages education. A simple example is the amount of money it
pours into the BYU education system. There is a big emphasis on acquiring
knowledge and wisdom.

I actually think that the first two factors are more important and more relate
to the culture of the state of Utah than of the Church as a whole.

~~~
jacurtis
The church does emphasize (careful) secular education. But I think the
original comment was referring more to doctrinal education, which the church
actively discourages. Also, if doctrinal education ever conflicts with secular
education, then doctrine trumps everything.

The example of the money the church pumps into BYU does more to hurt your
counter-argument than to help it. The church pumps so much money into BYU so
that it can provide formal education to its members, while controlling the
education experience. The purpose of BYU is exactly to further the controlled
church experience and controlled education of the world.

In fact, the Church is incredibly smart in how they operate. The most personal
interaction you have with the church is between the ages of 18 - 25. These are
the most malleable ages for a young adult, since this is the time that they
naturally seek direction and purpose in their life. The church is top of mind
for members during this time, and so the church has created a system where
they can control these important years to mold future faithful followers and
spread the religion.

The day you turn 18 they start "preparing you for a mission". Then they send
you to the temple where you are told that you have now entered into covenants
that, if broken, will now fuck you up for eternity. With the fear of your
eternal salvation in the balance, they then send you off for 2 years to a
church obedience boot camp (usually referred to by the euphemism of "a
mission") where they literally control everything you say, think, or do for 2
full years. They pull you away from the environment you once knew, even
frequently to another country. They control who you associate during these
years, and try to build habits towards being a good future member. As soon as
you graduate from the 2 year boot camp, they promise a sex-deprived 21 year
old that they can now get laid by going to BYU and finding a beautiful mormon
virgin who has been waiting for them their entire life. Then at BYU they can
again control the narrative of your life. Curriculums meet national standards
for accreditation here, but are also taught by other members who are committed
to controlling the narrative of the Church. Now that you are married, you are
encouraged to start having kids. Most BYU grads will already have kids by the
time of their graduation. Once you have kids, now the emphasis is to raise
them within the church. They will now begin primary school (as you once did)
and continue the cycle that you just completed. By the time the church "lets
go" of you during this important part of your life, you are 25 or 26 years
old, already have several kids, and you don't want to ruin their lives by
questioning church teachings. You final job as a 26 year old member is to
"endure to the end". Quite possibly the saddest, most depressing stage of
Mormonism. I hate when my Grandma tells me she is "enduring to the end".
During this stage (between ~30 -> death) your goal is to "endure". Not enjoy,
but endure.

During the endurance stage you are told to: go get a job so you can pay for
your kids and pay your 10% of your pre-tax income as "tithing". Go to church
every sunday. Take your kids to church every wednesday. Go to the temple for
further doctrine reinforcement on Saturday. Don't drink coffee, tea, alcohol.
Don't think impure thoughts. Just rinse and repeat. Just "endure", until you
have the pleasure of dying.

BYU is very important to the Church's membership and tithing dollars. They
aren't running that church from the bottom of their hearts. It all controls
their members. If you remove BYU from the church's plan (as outlined above),
they would lose MANY MANY members during those important ages of 18-25. They
have created an effective algorithm/strategy that creates a cycle of promises
and control mechanisms to keep you in the hamster wheel. BYU is critical to
that strategy. That is also why BYU Idaho exists. It allowed them to broaden
their net to even more young adults.

This is mostly the controlled experience that a man would experience within
Mormonism. Unfortunately a woman's experience is even more depressing and
controlled. But follows a similar outline.

So back to the original point. Yes, I would argue that in fact, "The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints actively discourages any sort of rational
individual thought".

~~~
mikelyons
This echos what the Islamic state does with it's youth also. These are systems
of control built to perpetuate collective egos.

------
dwoozle
This is my favorite article on MLMs, how they basically consume and destroy
female friendships for a quick buck.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/21/how-
mlms-a...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/21/how-mlms-are-
hurting-female-friendships/)

------
dmalvarado
ASEA also stands for Alaska State Employees Association, which explains dark
green Alaska

------
closetohome
I'm a little concerned that at no point in the article does the author use the
term "pyramid scheme."

~~~
dorothyat40
Like it's co-opting this soft language that the industry is pushing to
distance itself from a pyramid scheme, which is very much is?

------
droithomme
I'm not sure what the purpose of the article is. It mentions a bunch of
companies I've never heard of and has maps apparently of which states people
search for their company name on Google, each year from 2008 to 2018. I
suppose they are showing growth of interest in each company name. But there's
not much commentary in the article. Just maps and a paragraph description of
what the company is selling and a brief history.

The first on the list claims is an oil and gas company popular in Texas that
somehow sells oil and gas using a multi-level marketing scheme?!? Whaaaat? The
article doesn't even explain how that works or what they are really selling.
Do random independent distributors buy gas tanker trucks and make deliveries
to farm houses then try to recruit the farmer to sell to his neighbors? They
could have tried to explain what this company is about. But instead it's just
these maps and cryptic descriptions.

Another one says a MLM company sold leggings that became popular, then lowered
in quality, which resulted in lawsuits. But no mention of lawsuits about what.

Not sure the article is useful or the title "epidemic" is justified. There
probably is a MLM epidemic, but the article doesn't really support that. Just
lists some random companies with spartan facts and some maps derived from
Google search data.

------
mortenjorck
I'm guessing the 13 companies here are the long tail of MLM compared to Amway
and Herbalife, but I’m curious just how big the difference is.

~~~
thephyber
From the wording in the article, I'm guessing this is just using Google Trends
data. You can search and compare for yourself:
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0dg...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0dgsq8m,%2Fm%2F038f_t)

------
TexasBuckeye
These MLM "companies" are a scourge on many desperate and under-educated
people. They prey on the desperate and it's unbelievably unfortunate that it's
still actually legal.

------
randogogogo
I'm always amazed by how well MLMs inoculate their sellers to criticism.
Questioning the merits of the product or the distribution system usually
results in conflict. A lot of people selling these things think they've
discovered something special and that they're clever to have picked it up and
run with it. Once they're at that point there is no stopping ego.

------
rhizome
Read the classics, too!

[http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html](http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html)

------
cityzen
There is a great podcast called The Dream about MLMs. I feel sorry for anyone
that gets wrapped up in these things.

------
qwerty456127
What if all the businesses were MLM?

What if MLM schemes were also designed to re-distribute rewards so all the
wealth wouldn't concentrate in the the top members' pockets?

~~~
kjs3
They wouldn't be MLMs in any recognizable sense?

~~~
qwerty456127
I mean what if there were no centralized retailers, everybody would be
encouraged to re-sell, everybody would be rewarded for distributing to other
active re-sellers, people receiving abnormally high passive income from their
networks because of their high position in the distribution hierarchy would be
taxed to reward active minors.

At the same time businesses producing goods (rather than distributing tem) and
services (incl. storage, logistics and quality control) would remain the
classic way, MLM is just about the sales.

Just imagine buying all your groceries and gadgets from neighbors and friends
rather than from Walmart/etc. Wouldn't that be nice?

~~~
kjs3
Oh, I see what you mean. Then my answer (not facetious) would be "because that
would suck". I don't want to be a micro-distributor, I don't know a lot of
people outside of sale that would think that's awesome, and if there's
anything MLM has proven is that buying exclusively from your
friends/acquaintances/neighbors is a good way to ruin relationships.

Sure...there's a more equitable scheme to equalize distribution of wealth, but
please don't let this be it.

------
alpineidyll3
They left out graduate education ;P

------
StanAngeloff
Over the past 15 years, I've had the opportunity to work with more than a
dozen MLM companies in the UK. This won't be a popular opinion, however I
believe great quality products and a self-regulating industry can create
businesses that are far from being a Ponzi scheme but are legitimate companies
with ethics, great support and opportunity to earn decent money.

~~~
noxToken
At the core of it, MLM is a legitimate business strategy to get a relatively
unknown product distributed through a network effect.

I create a meal replacement smoothie. Some friends want to try it, so I hook
them up. Then friends-of-friends ask about this smoothie that isn't available,
so I let them sell the product to other people in exchange for a cut. I
quickly realize that I don't have the capital for to materials. Product is
moving too fast, so I ask them to pay up front for some of the materials.

The problem is that this benign relationship that helps both of us can be
easily made predatory.

