@Sugarplum48 @BotOff if you ever decide to record your experiences of MLM and the kind of personalities and behaviour that goes on, perhaps in some sort of blog then it would be interesting to read it!
That's kind of you to say BotOff but others have and still do much more than I've ever done. In fact the whole MLM industry is doomed to fail in its present form with no help from us but I really believe anti MLM commenters and critics have done spectacular damage to it along the way.
I didn't start watching MLMs until about 2014/15 and only really got focussed when Juice Plus and Younique set their sights on PND groups I ran in a children's centre in one of the poorest boroughs in London where a Younique mascara represented a huge chunk of money to individuals who'd been convinced that Younique was their route out of having to use the food bank and a fix for their PND. It was shocking. Once you start watching you just see such manipulation from the top down. The trickiest part is working out when a victim becomes a perpetrator.
There were already a lot of people watching Forever Living, highlighting the lies and misrepresentation of the bots and taking a lot of flak for it. Many had friends or partners caught out by it others had been involved and realised it was financially damaging and a pit of snakes. For me Timeless Vie, Botwatch, Elle Beau, Talented Ladies Club, the Anti MLM Coalition, Miss Sponlie's FMW take downs and a host of other ex-MLM content creators made people look at MLM more critically and highlighted each lie by the companies and their reps. I am sure you're right @BotOff about these Botwatcher threads having helped people along the way.
Having doubts and being alone with them is difficult but the more bad experiences people share, then they can understand that it's not them, it's a negative experience shared by others.
Those groups and commenters led to some very negative MLM media coverage (sadly interspersed with lazy advertorials). Then came the pandemic which created a whole load more victims. It also brought MLM behaviour to the attention of a whole load more people who were disgusted by behaviours such as the harnessing of charity to increase volumes etc (that's still going on).
Now it's a much reduced "industry" in the UK but it hasn't improved in any way, it's just lost its power. Personally I won't stop banging on about the curse of MLM (and the parasitic trainers and coaches attached to the industry) until they are recognised as the pyramid schemes they truly are and stamped out (though I expect I'll be in the Twilight Home for the Decrepit long before that happens).
Right, back to work...