Comment on My friend on social refuses to see how this is a pyramid scheme
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 7 months agoPay it forward would be fine if it was 1-1, you gift a book to one person and you get one in return. The scam is that you get people in thinking if they gift one they’ll get more than one back. Of course they probably won’t, it’ll quickly collapse.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 7 months ago
Pay it forward things aren’t 1-1 either. You’re not guaranteed to even get anything back yourself most of the time. It’s just to feel good about yourself. Like paying for the people behind you at a drive-thru.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 7 months ago
but pay it forward can work in theory
this can't even work in theory because books entering the system 1 at a time and leaving the system 36 at a time requires 35 books to be conjured out of thin air
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 7 months ago
I think the idea here is that 36 people send 1 book and you could be the recipient of the other 35 you didn’t send since you’re all on the same list and everyone is choosing a recipient at random.
Primarily0617@kbin.social 7 months ago
how could you know the total participant count is 37 ahead of time if you're currently looking for sign ups
also, a book exchange of 37 people doesn't strike me as particularly "huge"
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 7 months ago
I think that’s where it becomes a scheme instead of a generosity thing. The expectation that you could win out, that you will get more than you put in. Paying it forward you go in not expecting anything, but that’s not the way this is structured.