For the longest time, I automatically dismissed anything that had a hint of MLM/networking, because I believe it is built on deception. Recently though, I noticed that several of my batchmates have gotten into it. Nakakapagtaka - these people are qualified enough to get decent corporate jobs, but somehow opted to join a networking group. Usana/Xtrm seems to be the in thing right now.

Personally, I believe that networking is ethically unstable because it is built on the business model wherein you manipulate someone to pay you a certain sum of money, with the promise that they too can coax others to do the same.

In my head, when I try to simplify the business model:
Guy 1: "Pare, pahingi naman ako 10k"
Guy 2: "G*go ka ba, bat naman kita bibigyan ng pera"
Guy 1: "Pag binigyan mo ko 10k, pwede ka na rin magrecruit ng ibang tao tapos sila naman magbibigay sayo 10k"

...and the cycle goes on. Then, they try to legalize it by creating some crap product to prove that the money that recruited members pay is for the product and not for the networking per se. Of course, if anyone has attended a networking dinner, you'd know that they will talk 95% of the time about the earnings you can have, and only about 5% on the product itself.

I looked at FB/Instagram posts with networking hashtags (#xtrm, #xtrmlifestyle), and it was all about materialistic posts. Yung isa, nakapag-check in sa Dusit. Yung isa, nakabili Macbook. Yung isa, kumain sa sosy buffet sa Shang.
In my head, these are things that you can all have if you get a decent job that doesn't rely on deception and trickery.

Magkano ba kinikita ng mga networker na yan? Alam naman natin na yung mga nasa taas lang yung nakakabili ng mga Ferrari and other ubiquitous toys, but for the average networker, how much do they make in a month and how long does it take them to reach that level of income? Also, how many percent of these networking folks actually make it big, compared to those na nababaon lang sa utang dahil sa napaka-materialistic lifestyle nila?

Bottom-line, mababa talaga tingin ko sa networkers, and I'd like to hear different perspectives that could possibly make me view them in a different light.