I work as a web dev, FE/BE, and company I currently work in took a project that is basically some kind of MLM structured business. It’s a challenge to do such project, not only from dev perspective, but also morally I’m not sure if I’m okay with it.
My question is - what do you think about MLM structures in companies ? Is it scam based business or is there something that I’m missing ?
It’s not decided yet if it will be binary or turnover based, but what is your experience with those two types of management system ?- from a technical perspective or product seller perspective. Thank you.
Have you ever worked for MLM company before? What was you experience ?
If you’re having issues with morals I’ll help out, don’t worry bud.
MLMs are pure scum of the earth. My mother was a part of Mary Kay in the 90s. She was always a bit socially awkward so MK gave her friends immediately, outings she could go to, everyone was so happy to be included. In the beginning she did okay, she sold some makeup and was happy with everyone, but her upline told her she needed to do more.
Now with MLMs you buy the product up front and then it’s in you to sell it. Making rank is based on how much product you buy, not really how much you sell. So I remember growing up with her storeroom of makeup. Shelves and shelves of makeup. Because if she wanted to keep her friends and keep going her upline told her she had to do more, start hosting parties, get some downlines yourself.
So she did, she pushed, and she hustled, and had parties all the time and she made it all the way to the Mary Kay director level. She got the Grand Am award for making it so far! It was awesome!
Until it wasn’t. You see that huge amount of sales, that pushing? She had to keep doing that just to maintain that level. To keep going she would need to keep doing the insane amount she did for that month forever.
The car by the way? It was a lease, in her name. Just Mary Kay would pay the car payment as long as she kept the status.
Dad worked for the government making a simple salary. She didn’t have a real job. Her sales slipped because she had sold to all of her friends already. She tried to expand but her social network was tapped out. On threat of being demoted and the her being responsible for the car payments she kept buying product, what’s one month or just buying a bit more so they’ll pay for the car? So she can keep the friends?
It was only a matter of time. She dropped status and they stopped paying for the car. She was ostracized for not hustling enough.
Dad left for dozens of reasons but not in small part due to money issues and quote: “I don’t have enough money to get lunch with my friends at work”. They repod the car, and finally the bank took the house.
It’s been 25 years from that and she is financially destitute. She works retail in her 70s because her entire life plan revolved around Mary Kay. They don’t offer retirement, savings, or benefits, and she bet everything on her marriage working out perfectly. So no retirement, no savings, no income. The prime earning period she had was spent giving money to this shill of a “company” so she could feel like she belonged and was helping the family. Her money issues are not solely on MaryKay, she never learned how to properly manage money, but MaryKay and other MLMs prey on people who do not have financial literacy promising them that their worry about bills and mortgages and putting food on the table will be a thing of the past, if they just hustle a bit more.
MLMs prey on moms who live at home who are desperate for friends and community. They rely on people who are not financially smart enough to know that you should never pay to be a part of a company. They’re sneaky, you make choices you know feel wrong but don’t end up biting until it all collapses
My mom’s story is not unique, but it’s personal. Check out LuLaRich on Netflix for info on LuLaRoe and how leggings have destroyed countless moms, Betting on Zero which is the story of Herbalife, and John Oliver does a great segment on MLMs and how unregulated they are.
Thank you for sharing this story. I’ve recently watched this video on MLMs and it describes exactly the kind of situations your mom found herself in. I thought these MLM schemes were bad before, but I had no idea just how horrible they actually are…
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=kcPjpG6oglg
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Multi-level marketing is a kind of pyramid scheme, they’re only legal because existing anti-pyramid scheme laws only prohibit “businesses” that don’t actually sell any products, and make all of their money through recruitment.
MLMs get around this by recruiting people to “sell” products, but recruits must pay for them in advance (almost always at a massive markup) and the products are typically so overpriced and/or poorly made that many of them go unsold.
So, almost all of the profit of those at the top of the pyramid comes from their downstream recruits recruiting more people to “sell” the product, even though product sales are completely unrelated to the success of the scheme as a whole.
existing anti-pyramid scheme laws only prohibit “businesses” that don’t actually sell any products, and make all of their money through recruitment.
So like… NFT communities?
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According to the FTC, more than 99% of people who join an MLM end up losing money. It’s pretty evident it’s just a scam, where the only way you can end up making money is not by selling something, but by enrolling enough people in your downline, thereby defrauding them. I mean just read the Wikipedia article, or watch this episode of Last Week Tonight .
If you take the job I recommend malicious compliance. You know pyramids are modern style. They can really give a website a nice succinct feeling. Demonstrates there’s a top and a bottom.
I recommend however you frame their website as a web developer, you should incorporate the pyramid prominently into their design
Be sure to get a nice headshot of the CEO. Something lighted from below. Make sure he or she doesn’t smile; tell them it’s more professional that way. Desaturate the image so it’s black and white. Take the picture from a low angle to give it that look of distinction and confidence!
I worked as a dev for a tech company that had MLM’s as their clients almost exclusively. Some of those clients have been named in this thread but I won’t list them. I helped work on the apps and website that the products were sold on.
My experience was surprisingly positive because I was shielded from the scummy side of the business. I liked my coworkers and enjoyed working on the platform. I did leave after 2 years. I learned a ton on the job which helped me land my next job which I love(and a big level up). I wouldn’t go back into the MLM industry though unless I had to due to limited job choices.
I don’t really have anything juicy to say about the industry, for the most part it was like any other dev job. Well the company did lay off people recently because I assume their bigger clients are running out of potential victims. Some MLM’s stay forever while others burn bright and then fizzle out, so if this MLM is a new one they might fizzle out soon and you may get laid off anyways.
I understand your moral qualms because I would have them myself. Are you an actual employee of the MLM and be paid as a W2 employee? Or are you being offered equity in the company? How are you being compensated is what I am getting at. MLMs by their very nature are legal scams. Most operate out of Utah because Utah is legally friendly towards that model of operation.
Company is taking contracts and giving it to some of ,their freelancers,. So just another middleman in the shitstorm. My position will be somewhere in the middle of designing the scheme and actually implement it to their proprietary software. Edit : so I am looking at it from two standpoints - if I’m not going to do it, someone else will happily do it. I will never be client or supporter of this kind of business, but I am a developer so I ,can do it,.
if I’m not going to do it, someone else will happily do it
This “justification” works for everything, from parking on the disability park spot to genocide.
Having said that, my first task at a new job in '94 was “you see these three workers counting, stacking and feeding the product into the packing machine? You’ll design a stacker to replace them”. “ah, three workers three shifts, so you’re saying my first task is to make 9 people jobless?”. “yup, but we’ll replicate it to other lines, so…”.
Someone would do it anyway.
Yup, there’s a reason that engineering degrees require ethics classes. On the surface, you don’t realize civil engineering can be racist, until you learn about engineers designing bridges too short for busses to drive under, so white neighborhoods can keep bus-riding minorities out.
Yes, someone will always do it anyway.
You must ask yourself how you will feel about providing professional support to this MLM. Can you imagine looking yourself in the mirror? Can you imagine how you will feel once the job has been completed?
I had a dilemma like this back in 2007. I was an auditor at a CPA firm, and my boss tried to assign me to a new client…a PAC… back when PACs were just starting to register in the general public’s awareness. This PAC was in support of a politician that stood for the opposite of nearly every social issue I cared about. I did try to keep an open mind. Auditors are supposed to be unbiased, but usually the worry is don’t get too friendly with your clients, not the other way around. But I couldn’t do it. I imagined what it would be like to go to this place for 2 weeks to do the fieldwork. And I couldn’t do it. Just 2 weeks of my life. Nope. The politician was too polarizing.
I told my boss to assign someone else. He gave me a little flack for it, but overall he was a good boss who appreciated me as a professional. He assigned someone else and that’s the last I heard of it… until that PAC was getting targeted by tv talking heads waving our audit report in front of the cameras.
I’m soooo glad I declined that assignment. Not only am I proud of myself for standing up for my issues, not actively undermining them by working for the “other side”, but I dodged a bullet by not being associated with them on actual television.
My advice to you. Get the compensation structure in writing and have an attorney go over it. MLMs will find any reason to fuck you over.
