What is the current status of MLMs?

kfwyre
Sun, 15 Jun 2025 14:06:53 +0000

MLMs = "multi-level marketing" companies, which is essentially a euphemism for "pyramid scheme." These are flat out illegal in many countries, but are, notably, quite legal in the US.

They used to be huge in the 2010s, but I don't hear much about them anymore (granted, I haven't been on social media since 2016). I know several IRL people who got into them, and I even regrettably bought products from some of them before I really understood what they were or how they worked.

I recently read Hey, Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson who was toward the top of the pyramid at Rodan + Fields.

In the book she mentions that algorithmic changes from social media companies ended up downgrading a lot of MLM postings, which cut off oxygen to the cycles of recruitment that these companies rely on. For example, Rodan + Fields moved to an affiliate model in 2024.

I'm curious about what the MLM landscape looks like right now.

Are MLMs still common?

For those of you on social media, do you still get recruitment and sales messages?

Have they changed their tactics or models?

People don't have to limit responses to just those questions -- consider this a general MLM discussion topic where anything related to them is fair game.

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