Now a days more people are investing in affiliate marketing then ever. I have noticed that a huge portion of this connected people are undetgrad students. Maybe they thought that while sitting idly during the lockdown, they better make some money. And affiliate marketing really attracts people as there are less effort and pretty good income.
I saw some of my friends doing this so I decided to do some research. What I find out is pretty disappointing. I saw they were joined with a particular brand (I will not mention any name) which is not actually affiliate marketing but it is a pyramid scheme. So I will tell the difference between these two terms.
Affiliate Marketing
In this type of platform any product or products are given to affiliates to sell them to customers. If they can sell the products, then they get some commission from the brand from the profit they make. And this this process is totally ethical and no one gets harmed here.
Pyramid Scheme
In this type of platform the brand tells a group of people to invest a definite amount. And if that first group of people can bring more investors like them, then they will get commission. Here is the twist. The commision or profit they will have, comes from the investments the next group of people will spend. And the brand will get profit from both of those parties. So if you think selfishly, then you will see no harm. You invest, get your profit, whats wrong?
Here is the wrong. You will make profit only when you are able to bring more people in the business. Imagine when there will be a lot of people in the business. The last stage of people will not be able to bring a lot of people in the business. That means they will have no profit. Their whole investment will be a lost project. And the brand will do nothing about it. They will take no responsibility because they didnot bring the people directly. They came through some other person.
So just think, a person who desperately needed money, invested to make some profit, just gets looted. If you brought him there, then ethically you and only you are fully responsible for that person's misery. And the person who just lost all his money can do any kind of harm to himself. And accept it or not, whoever invited him there is responsible for that.
So before you get in something like this, make sure its not pyramid scheme. Because, primarily it might seem like money machine, but in the long run, it will cause harm to someone. And believe me, one way or another, in the future, you will have to payback for that. Be careful, tell others to be careful.
@ErdoganTalk sir hope you will read the article. You will not be disappointed.