Is the Internet Becoming a Pyramid Scheme?

Shepherd
I work mainly as a web writer, and I'm seeing a few trends that are making the entire Web 2.0 concept look like it's turning into a big pyramid scheme. While it's not the intention of anyone involved- there it is. Here's what I see happening:

Step 1- Web Writing
I, and many of my colleagues, write the web content for the web sites you enjoy. While I don't have any one niche, I end up writing quite a bit about affiliate marketing, internet marketing and other various aspects of Web 2.0. These items, of course, are placed on numerous websites in order to make the webmaster a profit.

Step 2- Information Sales
Some of the things that I, and other web writers, write are used as information products that are sold online. These products are often about how to make money online, how to make affiliate sales and how to use a web site to make money. Some of the information products are about how to write for the web and how to make a living with web writing. There are also many about how to write an ebook and sell it online. So, the ebooks are being sold to teach others how to do the same thing and make money online. The people who buy them then make money with their websites and sell information to others about how to do it.

Step 3- Buy More Products
Webmasters often own many sites that they stock with content. I've worked for clients who had literally hundreds of sites. To make each site as productive as possible, there are thousands of products out there to bring in traffic, to market websites and to create your own content quickly. Software, reports and more ebooks end up being bought to get a better profit from the websites. If there's not enough profit, more products are bought in order to make the initial investments in the site finally pay off.

Step 4- Crowded Market
The crowded market for information and software will get even more crowded. This will make it so expensive and time consuming to market any one information product that they cease being very profitable. Affiliates selling these products have no sales and have to make their own products to sell, further crowding the market. Many of these sites will no longer be able to afford to take out ads and pay for information products to to help them sell their information products. Those sites go down because they aren't profitable, and the sites that would buy them go down because they don't have the information and software they need to guide their business.

Step 5- Saturation
After awhile, it seems inevitable that the market for the remaining products will slow to a crawl, as everyone has either bought, sold or written information about how to utilize Web 2.0 to make money. Marketing and advertising budgets will be exhausted and tales of how much time and money it costs to make an acceptable profit on a website will abound. Too much money will have been spent placing ads on popular websites, which will eventually slow as well, leaving the biggest sites without their sponsors. Crash.

Hey- it's just a hypothesis based on what I see going on within the Web 2.0 marketplace. It may not happen at all, or it may happen tomorrow. We'll see.

Published by Shepherd

Shepherd is a former reporter now working as a freelance writer specializing in PR writing and Web content.  View profile

7 Comments

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  • Catie Watson12/17/2008

    I've just gotten involved in writing web content, and within a couple of weeks I came to the same conclusion. We'll see how it goes...

    Thanks for summing up the situation so well.

  • Nikki2/12/2008

    interesting concept!

  • Kim Linton1/20/2008

    I agree with you. Saturation is bound to happen. The good news is there are tons of cyber geeks out there right now coming up with new ways to keep the web up and running. A great read!

  • Lenora Murdock1/10/2008

    interesting article!

  • Adam Gooding1/9/2008


    Not only that, the internet has become so infected with scams and just plain bad business that its sad. :(

  • Rebecca DeLuccia1/9/2008

    The Internet is just a cyber representation of the real world. There are millions of other options available but the conglomerates make sure its only theirs that reaches the majority.

  • WD1/9/2008

    Interesting point of view. Thanks! :)

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