Pyramid Schemes Are Alive and Well

You may have heard of pyramid schemes in the past. This a business model where one person or organization would recruit people to sell something. In turn, these newly recruited people will act as their own business and continue to recruit others, just as the original person had recruited them did. The cycle continues so that each underling continues to recruit more people to sell a product or service. Obviously there is potential for building a large organization using this tactic.

It becomes illegal when you start charging the recruits money or force them into payments to continue the business without any promises of ever actually making any profits.

It's hard to believe someone could be easily roped into a scheme like this to make money, but millions of people continue to get locked into the dream of being their own bosses and having the power of controlling employees. Power is a seductive drug that many of us fall for. Some of us don't even know we have this desire, but it's in all of us.

A few of the pyramid schemes are still running today, but they aren't nearly as popular as they were in the past. I guess word got out that it was a scheme to make the top dog of the organization rich, while you were merely a pawn in in an elaborate scheme. We still have pyramid organizations that still sell Tupperware, beauty/health products and fashion accessories. I still see some of the brochures on counters.

Today technology has changed greatly and we don't necessarily have to go door to door to sell things anymore. People have wised up and there are a ton of reviews and testimonies online that are easily accessible. It's harder for pyramid schemes to work because there are a ton of people that will expose the truth to these companies. Of course, there are fake testimonies out there as well but for the most part people can easily find out what's really up with services and products.

The pyramid scheme has changed and I don't think the people that originally created the businesses intended them to be pyramid scheme like. I take for example YouTube. You all probably know what YouTube is. It's a streaming source where people can display their video content to the world for free. I know you're going to ask me, how is this a pyramid scheme?

Well, YouTube is also created to be a social network. You build your own channel and these channels can be monetized if you have enough views and subscribers to your channel. Essentially you will become your own boss and want to recruit others to follow you. If you start becoming big and make a ton of money off of your own channel then you will entice others to follow in your footsteps to create their own YouTube channel. The cycle continues so that they create a large group of people to create content for the YouTube corporation.

It's a brilliant strategy and it is working marvelously for YouTube because there are now millions of people posting content and going out of their way to gain views and subscriptions—All this for the fantasy of making money off their own YouTube channels and being their own boss doing it. Sounds familiar doesn't it?

This is the case with a ton of social media sites nowadays. A ton of impressionable kids see the glitz and glamour of making it big, but they don't realize that it's harder than they think to make it that big. There's tons of competition, what makes you that more interesting than anyone else with a social media page?

Pyramid schemes are still doing quite well but they have new forms of pyramids that we don't really think about. The social media thing is a little hidden and it took me a little while to see it, but when I realized what it was it was a big eureka moment. It's fascinating to see how history can repeat itself, but with a twist.