Is Pro-Blogging a Pyramid Scheme?
by Sean Platt on April 27, 2009
in blogging
Have you ever heard the whisper bandied about Blogopolis that pro-blogging is really nothing more than a pyramid scheme, where those at the top engage in a slow and steady release of information leading readers toward steps they’ve since abandoned? Blogging is a pyramid, but it is a ziggurat well worth climbing.
I remember the first time a friend of mine equated blogging to a pyramid scheme. My initial reaction, just a couple of months into the game myself, was of indignant defense. “No,” I insisted, Blogging is the great equalizer, where anyone can take their voice and spread it like wildfire until their own millions are burning inside their bank.
Who hit the head harder with the hammer? Is blogging a giant pyramid scheme or a legitimate way to mine untold riches from a winding stream of passive income?
I believe a bit of both.
Blogging is an amazing opportunity for anyone willing to devote the time, attention, and perseverance required to make it BIG TIME. It is also a scaffolding upon which a few nobles rest upon the top as scads of lowly serfs scramble about below.
Let’s look at what constitutes an old fashioned pyramid scheme, then compare it to the relatively new world of blogging.
By traditional definition, a pyramid scheme requires an upfront investment of cash to buy in on the ground floor. With the easy set-up of a Blogspot or WordPress, is there any investment required for blogging?
Absolutely. Nothing is more valuable than our time, and few things can zap it as quickly as blogging. Though there is no immediate certifiable out of pocket expense required to join the club, there is a non negotiable investment of time. This, in addition to the multitude of add-on expenses that can quickly accumulate, such as hosting, premium themes, and an infinity of info-products promising to smooth the rough edges of your daily game.
Yes, there is an investment required, but by nature, an investment of time carries more soul than an investment of money.
Use your time wisely, climb a step.
A pyramid scheme’s success lies in a steady stream of new recruits. In order for an investor to recover their initial risk, there must be people below them on the pyramid willing to wager their own money. This justifies the speculation of the original investor while it elevates their standing on the pyramid. Is this similar to blogging?
Yes. Simple math states each new wave of bloggers will elevate the preceding generation. Of course, not everyone will hold firm and many will fade along the way, but those who stick around will become part of a narrowing class as more and more newbie bloggers flood to fill the bottom.
Staying consistent and falling into a healthy blogging rhythm can render a one time ordeal into simple routine. Make it past that first retaining wall (many bloggers agree it’s around the six month mark) and you earn the experience no new blogger can ever be given, no matter how many info products they’ve downloaded.
Stick around, climb another step.
Aren’t pyramid schemes inherently fraudulent?
Yes. The fundamental problem with a pyramid scheme is their models are impossible to sustain. Even supposing the entire globe agreed to buy into a particular scheme, there are only a finite number of participants who would ever be able to profit. Because this inevitability grinds against the grain of the original promise, it is fraudulent by nature.
When a cycle cannot sustain itself, the majority of investors become vulnerable to loss. It is estimated that 90% of people involved in pyramid schemes are on the losing end of the deal. Aren’t 90% of bloggers also working way too hard for way too little.
Absolutely, but this is where blogging and pyramid schemes spill into two separate seas. It is true that many internet marketers sell products expounding upon new ways to make money from blogging, and yes it is a bit incestuous, but in no way is a blogger obligated to follow any particular set of guidelines or pay for anything they don’t want to. Blogging is so young, the rules are being rewritten before the ink is even dry. It is still possible to get to the top and do it in your own way.
Stay true to yourself, climb another step.
It’s easy to see how people are so easily lured into the plush promises of a pyramid scheme. They work to whet our hungry appetites and convince us the richest meals may also be the quickest to prepare. It is never acceptable to take part in any scheme that involves deception or fraud either implied or promised. Anything that guarantees wealth without risk, time, or effort should ring in your ears like an entire fleet of fire engines.
Blogging, I believe, is different. With blogging you can build your own pyramid, start your own tribe, sell your own product, create your own network. If you see a product worth buying from a person you trust, priced at a fair point that you can afford – buy it.
Learn all you can, take another step.
When it comes to working online, backsliding is only an illusion, unless it leads all the way back to surrender. You may fall short of specific goals in regards to traffic, comments, followers, sales, etc. but the experience you gain can never be taken away. When it comes to online prosperity, there is no single ingredient more essential to success than forward momentum.
Blogging may share some similarities with a traditional pyramid scheme, but I think it has far more in common with the laws of compound interest. With compound interest you can pay and pay and pay, month after unceasing month, feeling forlorn as you tear open the envelope of every statement only to find your continuous contributions have yet to add to substantial earnings. At some stage however, the tipping point is reached and what you make each month from interest far exceeds the effort exerted.
Keep contributing, take another step.
This is why blogging is different. Those bloggers at the top; Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, John Chow, just to name a few, are not reaping the benefits of bringing others into a bad investment, they are merely earning interest from effort expelled a long time before.
There is no discounting the intelligent strategy and hard work that has placed the A-listers all at the top, but it cannot be argued that they’ve been climbing longer.
Sean Platt is a dad and ghostwriter with a creative streak.
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This is one of the best posts you have ever written, Sean. So much food for thought. I hope it goes viral. And God bless you for using “ziggurat” in a blog post!
Done well, blogging is the ultimate win/win. I bang on about this a lot, but I know you agree with me. The key to all blogging is knowing who you are, what you have to share, which communities you want to create or contribute to and why you’re doing it. Making money from membership sites, affiliation and selling your own products only works well when people have got to know you well enough to trust you. For most people, that takes hard work, time, energy, dedication, integrity and authentic passion – plus genuine belief in what you’re selling. Most of marketing is selling ourselves, not our product. So often, though, we see the lines between branding, filling a need, providing a service, exploitation and prostitution smudged.
The foundation of a pyramid has to be strong and sturdy to enable the upward growth. It’s up to us to decide which treasures our own pyramids will house for our journey to eternity.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with Janice (and yourself) on this one Sean.
To be perfectly honest I’m having difficulty figuring out your exact message here. Do you think blogging is like a pyramid scheme or not? Because based on some of your points I’d have to say you’re stretching the analogy a little too thinly.
I can see no comparison between the two other than the fact that the numbers get smaller as you get higher.
Allow me to offer some counter points.
By your very own definition a pyramid scheme requires an initial “investment of cash”. You then correctly state that blogging doesn’t.
So where’s the comparison? Time? Not a fair comparison.
Time does not equal money. Even in the simplistic of terms, time is finite, money not necessarily so.
Other than that, anything you do is determined by those two factors, time and money. In other words any and all activities require an investment in time and/or money. Does that make every activity a pyramid scheme?
“A pyramid scheme’s success lies in a steady stream of new recruits…Is this similar to blogging?”
Not necessarily. You’re on the right track, as far as pro blogging is concerned maybe but your next sentence undermines your point.
“Simple math states each new wave of bloggers will elevate the preceding generation.”
No. Experience elevates your position not the number of people starting a new blog in an attempt to follow in your footsteps. Something which you seem to agree with, “[probloggers] are not reaping the benefits of bringing others into a bad investment, they are merely earning interest from effort expelled a long time before”
Sorry dude but a bit of a confusing post for me.
This is actually a subject that both Sean and I have talked about for quite a while. I think Sean did an excellent job of laying down some thought provoking points without giving a definitive opinion.
I think it’s hard to clearly state one way or another as I can see both pyramid tendencies along with good old capitalist competition. There’s no doubt that quality content, a good business sense and the ability to hang in there will most certainly bring some form of payment to the party in question. But I do believe that much of the success that comes from being at the top is based on the fact that wave after wave of new bloggers come, buy into an idea and then mostly fall away. Because it’s incredibly challenging to make it near the top, these reigning bloggers rarely see any real competition from those who buy their products and ideas. So they enjoy both the advantage of little competition from their followers, along with the steady stream of income as these hopefuls come and go.
I’m not here to say that blogging is a pyramid scheme and I don’t believe that’s what Sean’s intent was either (if this were the case we would have already packed up and left), but I find it hard not to see the similarities as I work to rise in the ranks. Thankfully, blogging is full of possibilities, where a MLM scheme is not. So this is just food for thought, not a pointless dose of discouragement. Eric
Eric Hamm’s last blog post..How To Be Successful
Janice: Thanks Janice! I would love nothing more than for this post to go viral.
“Making money from membership sites, affiliation and selling your own products only works well when people have got to know you well enough to trust you. For most people, that takes hard work, time, energy, dedication, integrity and authentic passion – plus genuine belief in what you’re selling.”
Well said, true, and something that can only be accomplished from the top of the pyramid (at least in large measure).
Marc: Sorry to confuse you Marc. I believe that time and money are an absolutely fair comparison. In fact, time has infinitely more value to me than money. With a lot of years in front of me, I will always be able to make more money, but I can never manufacture a single minute. The investment required in s traditional pyramid scheme is a far easier one to make then the time and dedication required in blogging. Not only is that a fair comparison, in my opinion, it is an apt one as well. No every activity that requires time or money is not a pyramid scheme. However the specificities and goals set by pro-blogging dictate a more certain direction. Post X amount of times, for X length of time, all while doing a, b and c = hope that you may reach the top.
Keep in mind that in this comparison I am in no way referring to those who are blogging for fun rather than profit. This is about pro-blogging.
“No. Experience elevates your position not the number of people starting a new blog in an attempt to follow in your footsteps.”
Again, I have to disagree. While it is certainly experience that elevates the preceding generation it is also often nothing more than the virtue of time. As a new wave of hungry bloggers enters the fray, with zero page rank and zero experience, they look to those who have been there before, regardless of merit. That’s what I did, and so have a million other bloggers. This summer when a new wave crashes on the shore, there will be plenty of bloggers dropping comments on six month old blogs that they consider established.
Blogging isn’t a pyramid scheme, but pro-blogging DOES profit upon the hopes of masses at the bottom. I think there are more differences than similarities, but still more than enough to draw a parallel.
Eric: Exactly. Well said.
Pyramid schemes, pyramid schemes, pyramid schemes…
I think blogging is a pyramid scheme in the sense that, for example, ProBlogger would have no way to gain income if zillions of bloggers out there weren’t actively trying to become probloggers. So Problogger’s success is dependent on the strivings of many many others.
That being said… there’s nothing wrong with this. Just because only a few are ever going to make it doesn’t mean that the information ProBlogger puts out isn’t worthwhile and beneficial. It just means that the vast majority of people, even when they implement his teachings – will still never reach A-List status.
So I would say, in a loose sense, it is a pyramid scheme. Because those bloggers out there who reach prominence do so with the necessity of many many small time bloggers holding them afloat.
The beauty of it, however, is that anyone can rise to the top. There’s nothing holding them back except the quality of the product they produce and the marketing strategies they employ.
But in a very general sense, I do see it as a pyramid scheme. Doesn’t really correlate with a classical pyramid scheme – but it’s a decent analogy in my opinion.
I like what Eric said, “But I do believe that much of the success that comes from being at the top is based on the fact that wave after wave of new bloggers come, buy into an idea and then mostly fall away.”
I think the above is largely true.
I like what he said here too, “Because it’s incredibly challenging to make it near the top, these reigning bloggers rarely see any real competition from those who buy their products and ideas. So they enjoy both the advantage of little competition from their followers, along with the steady stream of income as these hopefuls come and go.”
Actually, I think there is a great deal of truth in the above.
This is a complicated issue, and I’m unsure exactly how I feel.
It’s a good discussion though and one that should be had in the blogosphere, no doubt.
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Marc: The opinion is there, I just think there is a lot of gray overlap if you know what I mean. I think that…
Bamboo: NAILED it! Dude, I could copy and paste that for our next guest post. You said a lot of what I wanted to say a lot better than I said it. My favorite:
“…ProBlogger would have no way to gain income if zillions of bloggers out there weren’t actively trying to become probloggers. So Problogger’s success is dependent on the strivings of many many others.
That being said… there’s nothing wrong with this. Just because only a few are ever going to make it doesn’t mean that the information ProBlogger puts out isn’t worthwhile and beneficial. It just means that the vast majority of people, even when they implement his teachings – will still never reach A-List status.”
I love me a discussion!
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Huh. I don’t read any of those guys (though Darren Rowse rings a bell for some reason.) Should I be reading them?
Hayden Tompkins’s last blog post..Take Your Marriage From ‘meh’ to YEAH!
This may earn me a black mark in the blogging world, but I’m going to risk it anyway. Top bloggers get where they are and get “rich” through intelligence, skill, and hard work. After that, to me it is rather like many of the info-mercials I have seen. They stay rich by telling others how to get rich.
Hope that made sense and didn’t take anything away from the original hard work needed to reach the top.
I had never equated the two, but interesting thoughts. I do think that there is a segment of the blogging population that uses other bloggers’s content (in exchange for links) to fill their website that might classify, but the rest seem pretty independent of other’s success to get ahead.
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I fall on the “It’s a pyramid” side of the argument… and worse I think it’s a perceived value that is heated up way beyond sustainable levels. Think tulips in the 17th century, etc. We do have an opportunity to avert a disastrous collapse, however, and that will be by self-imposing quality controls. This blog’s on my list because the quality is always good. But there is a load of crap out there, and there are first-movers who grabbed a massive portion of the available readers, and all of this will have to equalize over time. Great stuff!
That is how it works. You must learn fist from the masters before you can lead your own an earn at the same time.
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Well here is my opinion. Sure there are some people that can “make it” BIG time and whatnot by blogging.However most people won’t My reason for bloggin is completely different altogether. I have an existing business and just use blogging as a way to increase awareness,become social, network and most importantly provide quality content to the world. Some can make it “big time” blogging for dollars but for most it’s a pipe dream I think. It’s like going into social media to be the next SM guru and thinking you are going to be rich. Possible yes, but most likely won’t ever happen.
That’s all I have to say about that.
I think of blogging as a step by step guideline, and the steps you outlined are great. As to the A-listers, there have been other bloggers who have done it as long, but haven’t reached the lever of the ones you referred to. As you mentioned hard work and strategy are important, but good content goes a long way, too. Plus, with these A-listers in particular, I get the sense that there is a genuine interest in spreading their message. Even though they make good money at what they do, they enjoy doing what they do, too. Unless you love blogging, I don’t think you’ll last too long. The steps necessary to get to the top won’t be taken……………….:)
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I think this is an interesting idea… not all analogies are 100% parallels but there are some comparative points.
But I do wonder how long this model can sustain itself… exactly how many Zen Habits or Simple Dollars can there be? I honestly don’t know. I would like to think that if I’m able to endure then I’ll experience some growth and ‘reward’ for my effort but who knows?
In the meantime, however, I’ll enjoy the process and see where it leads.
Thanks for this thought proking topic!
Dave
Do You Dave Ramsey?’s last blog post..Lessons from the Great Depression
I’m of precisely the same thought. I’m happy to be along for the ride and see where it all takes me. No there can’t be too many Zen Habits or Simple Dollars but there will be plenty of sites that have yet to be dreamt that will be even bigger and better.
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Sean, I found your post thoroughly engaging and insightful. Even the comments were immensely entertaining. For what it’s worth, the difference between the pyramids and blogs, to me, is the product. In pyramid schemes, the product (if it can be called that) is the same, sold over and over, whereas in and among good blogs, the product is never the same.
I chose to see your post as “half full”.
Lilly S.
P.S. I stole your quote about making it to the top… I gave you full credit, however. Thanks!
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“Sean did an excellent job of laying down some thought provoking points without giving a definitive opinion.”
Perhaps that lack of opinion is where my confusion stems from.
“blogging is full of possibilities, where a MLM scheme is not.”
Tell that to Avon
Maybe, as I said to Eric, I’m expecting something different, something more out of the post.
“I think there are more differences than similarities, but still more than enough to draw a parallel.”
This post comes across as being more about the “pyramid tendencies” (as Eric puts it) not a pyramid scheme. Again I say, apart from the shape, where’s the comparison to the scheme? The fact that one is easier to invest in than the other is hardly a similarity.
“Blogging isn’t a pyramid scheme, but pro-blogging DOES profit upon the hopes of masses at the bottom.”
See? Now *this* is a comparison.
You know what? You’re totally right. I think, especially when it comes to this particular site, I’ve been thinking about headlines as much as what I right? I’ve written countless post titles that meant something to me and I felt went with the soul of my copy that never received more than a handful of clicks. “Is Pro-Blogging a pyramid scheme?” is a clickable title. Leaving the scheme out of the title just isn’t the same, a decision I wouldn’t have made at Writer Dad, but is rather ironically appropriate here.
The only one I would make sure I read no matter what was Brian Clark at Copyblogger. He will help you write better copy, no doubt, but you will also find yourself writing headlines such as, “Is Pro-Blogging a Pyramid Scheme?” : > )
Depends on what you want to achieve out of blogging Hayden. I’d suggest check them all out and see if any resonate with you
Ahhh. I see what you’re doing now. Magnetic Headlines as Brian says
I think that also explains my disconnected/confused feeling. The headline did indeed grab me but the copy wasn’t as strong.
Sniff…
No black mark for you! Your dead on. No one gets to the top by accident. Ever. It takes hard work, strategy and a whole lot of patience. No doubt about it.
Don’t worry you’re already way ahead of me mate.
I think it’s the whole mentality of selling a dream. The thing is the top bloggers aren’t the ones who are doing it. It is some bloggers in the middle who are using the top tier bloggers as an example to shill to those at assembling at the bottom.
Wonderful to see you, Holly!
Thanks Tim! That is a beautiful analogy – tulips in the 17th century WOW. I love the intelligence of our readers. Since we’re still at the beginning, we have yet to see the ripest fruit. Eventually, I have no doubt, the cream will rise to the top.
“Tell that to Avon
”
Tell that to the top 5% of Avon. The rest are working their arses off for minimum wage or less.
Eric Hamm’s last blog post..How To Be Successful
I know four people who sell Avon. Zero who make any money.
Paulubiadas: Exactly! And industry matters not. Hard work and subsequent reward are universal.
Writer Dad’s last blog post..Rolling Through the Rough Draft
I totally agree. I can’t think of an A-lister who doesn’t seem like they’re having a grand old time. That’s just one of the things that makes their position so enviable.
Writer Dad’s last blog post..Rolling Through the Rough Draft
What are you trying to say something about my mad blogging skillz?
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It seems like the bottom rows are always chasing the yesterday instead of looking for their own tomorrow. You can’t chase someone else’s tail, you need to hunt in a different direction.
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The only thing I would ever say about your blogging skills is: AWESOME! : > )
Sean’s last blog post..Deeper Roots For Longer Branches: Writer Dad 2.0