I've just been taking things a little easy whilst creating my plan for the next stage in the Profit Magnets journey whilst amusing myself with new discoveries.
The Christmas holiday sort of expanded into the Easter holiday and I suddenly looked around horrified at how fast 3 whole months had drifted by.
That isn't to say I've been idle. Far from it. I have discovered a mass of new ways to lose money along with quite a few good ways to make some and, fortunately and overall, I am ahead of the curve and in profit even with some that have crashed and burned.
I have been busy exploring a whole bunch of new things so as to learn as much as I can about them and, along the way, discover why this decade is spawning a whole bunch of opportunites that would never have worked a few years ago.
The reason they work now and would not have worked back then is all to do with the exponential growth of the Internet of course, but that isn't the biggest reason. The biggest reason is that now, more than ever in the past, so many people really do believe that you can acquire something for nothing on a long-term basis.
This period in time really is the era of the something for nothing movement and many cynical people and organisations are perpetuating that movement. Is it any wonder why so mnay innocent people get hurt along the way.
I can honestly say that what I have mostly discovered is a total minefield of shiny object business models designed to entrap and deprive people of their cash. The temptation to jump in can sometimes be overwhelming.
The best example of this would be the "rev-share" model. There are literally hundreds of online businesses - spawning daily it seems - designed to attract people to spend time simply clicking ads online. The idea (and the supposed upside) is that the ad-clicking produces a daily income that can be withdrawn or re-invested.
The downside is that you have to pay to buy the right to so click these ads in most cases (although some appear to be very small payments to get in). People are further incentivised with the promise of vast fortunes if they are prepared to recruit others to the scheme. It seems very clear to me that all of them will, over time, collapse.
There is massive encouragement to re-invest what you earn so that your earnings are increasing more rapidly and, of course, in this way, the organisation offering the scheme very effectively puts off the need to pay out for as long as possible.
They will collapse because no advertiser in his/her right mind will continue to pay for advertising that simply produces click after click after click with no follow on leading to sales. It is no suprise to see that most advertisers who produce the ads that the members click on are also advertising their own version of the same type of programme!
I looked to see what all the fuss was about and I looked at quite a few. I even put some money into two of them to see how they really worked. Bottom line, right now, I remain convinced that they are all, without exception, a mugs game. In both real money cases I have theoretically made money but as I have yet to pull any of it out maybe I haven't after all.
One of them, interestingly, has suddenly massively dropped the amount earned from clicking ads just these last few days. I bet that one is going out of business! There are too many such schemes to name and I have no actual evidence of any of them being scams but if I were you I would avoid anything that appears to be offering money to you in exchange for clicking advertisements.
Yes, there will be big earners from these schemes but only people who can either throw masses of money at them that is quickly returned as income or (most likely) those that can attract a mass of followers straight in behind them.
My view on "rev-share" is stay well away if you do come across them. I can't say for sure that they are all "bent" but the model can't possibly work in the long run. Even though there are schemes out there that have already been running (or so we are told) for 2, 3 or even 4 years it seems.
There is a school of thought that suggests that a game can be played with those businesses that, for the brave, can be very lucrative. It is a game based upon a fast in and fast out mentality and a splatter gun approach to how many you get involved in. A game not recommended to any but the very brave.
As with all things though, the research into new business models uncovers the odd gem along the way. Just so we're clear though. I am not going to be talking about any of them by name - well, certainly not yet. I have much research yet to do. None of those "shiny object businesses" involve rev share though.
There is one I would like to talk about but I still will not do so.
I want to talk about it because I put in €200 back in August 2015 and it is now showing me a worth of €773.93 in my account. If it goes the whole year and is still showing profit I may talk a little about it but I need an awful lot of evidence and persuassion now before I give any new model, "shiny business" opportunity the thumbs up.
Other notable business models include automated poker machine businesses (a high profile one of those just went bust) the binary matrix businesses and, of course, a plethora of gambling/betting related schemes.
The biggest con of all is probably still the bookmaker industry but that's a contentious issue for another day. I am getting bitter and twisted in my old age it seems... |