VoIP Goes Amway

from the sell,-sell,-sell... dept

Want to know just how hyped up VoIP has become? Not only are there weird, fake movies about it, but now companies are starting to adopt the Amway -style legal-pyramid-scheme model of selling VoIP where "customers" also happen to be "agents" selling the technology. All the more reason to start expecting VoIP spam.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2004 @ 11:06am

    It IS one method of distribution

    In business school I sat down in my marketing class and was bewildered with the prof said we were going to cover multi-level marketing that day. A murmur broke out in the class as we all looked at each other with weird looks on our faces, thinking. "Our prof when nuts."

    "Okay, okay", the prof said. "I know that this has a bad rap and none of you will be doing this in your careers, but it IS a way to quickly grow a sales and distribution organization with very little capital. And there are legitimate - as well as illigimate - companies that have used this in the insurance, make-up, consumer products and a lot of other segments. So keep an open mind and at least learn about something that you really know nothing about".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Mike (profile), 20 Sep 2004 @ 11:11am

    Re: It IS one method of distribution

    Sure, MLM is a (sometimes) legitimate means of building a distribution network, but it's a scam for most of the distributors -- which is what you should have learned in any business school class.

    Why?

    Because you're outfitting everyone with an identical solution, giving them no competitive advantage. And, unlike a franchising system, you don't even limit them by geography.

    Instead, you're basically building up a bunch of people to be disillusioned. It works for the people a the top, who basically trick people into doing their selling for them.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Tom Keating, 20 Sep 2004 @ 12:22pm

    VoIP MLM

    It's official. With VoIP MLM, VoIP can now be called an industry.
    Tom Keating
    My VoIP Blog
    TMCnet.com

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.