Lets Talk About AGLOCO

When I explained this new MLM program in What the Hell is AGLOCO? I tried to be somewhat objective – whether I succeeded or not is up to you. I’m going to go ahead and warn you, however, that this post is going to be entirely my opinion as it relates to some comments I’ve seen across multiple blogs over the last week or two.

Argument 1: The Average AGLOCO User Won’t Make Much Money

I’ve seen this one being used by far the most out of any other anti-AGLOCO argument. Unfortunately it’s true. The average AGLOCO user won’t make much money. Here’s an excerpt from Shoemoney’s post on the subject:

Well AllAdvantage (the former company) had over 10 million members and paid out over 120 million dollars to it’s members. So at best the average person made $12 ?? And some people are claiming they were making 5-6 figures from AllAdvantage which means the average user probably is only going to make a dollar or 2….. at best… per year….

To which I replied:

To say it’s worthless because only a few people will be banking on it doesn’t really make any sense to me.

How many Adsense publishers make what you do?
How many Azoogle affiliates make what you do?
How many CJ publishers make what you do/did?

Sure a limited amount of people will be making the real money with AGLOCO (just like AllAdvantage) but is that different with any other earning avenue on the net? No.

Shoe didn’t give me a response, but I don’t think it’s because he was ignoring my point; I think it was because this post came just before all that MBL drama you’ve been reading about and he just didn’t get around to it. Just in case my point isn’t clear, I’m arguing that with anything online (and offline too) there is going to be a very small amount of people really exploiting any given industry.

Lets take Adsense for example. Markus Frind of PlentyOfFish.com earns at least $300,000 per month from Adsense alone according to John’s Google Whores post. I don’t know about you guys, but that’s a whole hell of a lot more than what I’m pulling in through Adsense. Does that completely discredit Adsense as a potential source of revenue? No, it doesn’t.

Argument 2 – Even Industry “Big Players” Are Staying Away From It

I saw a comment about this in John’s most recent AGLOCO post (6,000 signups) and have also seen it on a couple forums, IRC, and IM as well. It’s true a couple A-listers (gogo gogo) have expressed their doubts or outright disapproval of AGLOCO. That’s fine. These guys have taken what little knowledge they have on the subject (none of us have any real knowledge on AGLOCO at this point) and formed their own opinion. At the same time a lot of A-listers have also shown big support for AGLOCO. How do you pick and choose which A-lister to believe when (no offense) many of these guys didn’t even have names for themselves when the AA craze was at its peak?

I’m not saying the “big players” should be discredited, but when did *opinions* of these guys become the Word? I’ll go ahead and clue you in on something: the “big players” know as much about AGLOCO as you do. Use your brain. Come to your own conclusion. I’m not saying you shouldn’t listen to the opinions of others – that would be dumb of me – but what I am saying is to not take every word they speak as truth. At the end of the day it’s still opinion. It might be an educated opinion, but it’s still an opinion.

Argument 3 – AllAdvantage Went Under and So Will AGLOCO

Okay now this is just an argument spoken out of ignorance. Yes AGLOCO will run ads on your PC just like AllAdvantage did, but the business model is completely different. AGLOCO isn’t paying flat rates (as AllAdvantage did) for hours surfed. AGLOCO is going to pay in proportion to the amount of income they receive. Don’t take my word for it, read the terms that are posted on their website. Please read these terms in their entirety before comparing AGLOCO’s model to AllAdvantage.

Argument 4 – AllAdvantage Didn’t Pay Anyone

That’s simply not true. John made $25,000. What’s that you say? They paid John but not the little guys? That’s a lie too. Hell even my roommate who was one of the 0 referral fellas got a check. I don’t really even know what to say about this one other than the fact that people *did* get paid from AllAdvantage. Yes AllAdvantage went under (but so did a lot of other companies, remember?) but the users didn’t lose money. It’s untrue.

Argument 5 – AGLOCO Will Not Make Money Online! Ever!

Kumiko got a lot of link love for her post AGLOCO Will Not Make Money Online! Ever! She got so much attention in fact, that I’ve decided to dedicate a whole section of this post to hers!

1) Multi-level Marketing at its Worst
Kumiko claims AGLOCO is MLM at its worst. It’s true AGLOCO is multi-level marketing, but it’s far from a “pyramid (scheme)” as she puts it. With AGLOCO there’s no buy-in. There’s absolutely no way you can lose money. You might not make much if you don’t spend some real time promoting the service and building referrals, but it’s not a scam unless you risk actually *losing* money. You won’t lose money with AGLOCO. It’s not a scam like many other MLM programs.

2) Internet Advertising Market is Saturated
What market isn’t saturated? The only hurdle for internet advertising is to get the ads in front of visitors. The saturation doesn’t mean a damn thing as long as AGLOCO puts ads in front of people’s faces. It will do that with the viewbar. Why? Because they’re paying people for it. Kumiko also mentions “ad blindness”. Although she has no real data to support her claim, I would have to agree that certain demographics do have “ad blindness”. Unfortunately AGLOCO will target many of these people because you have to have at least some level of tech-savvyness (I’m sure that’s not a word, but I’m using it anyway) to use the viewbar. Will this affect it? I doubt it. I’m sure people will still click on ads that are relevant to their search patterns and even purchase products through it. Targeted ads generate leads and sales no matter what the demographic. The only thing that this may hurt is in the payout amount. The pay for end users may be smaller if “ad blindness” really is a problem, but it won’t eliminate it altogether.

3) It Failed Before and It Will Fail Again
See Argument 3 and 4.

4) Do the “Maths”
See Argument 1.

5) Don’t Believe the Hype
Apparantly a Stanford MBA is worthless because Kenneth Lay was an asshole. Point?

I’m not sure why this post of Kumiko’s got so much love across the blogosphere, but I just felt I needed to dispel some of the myths she was keeping alive and arguing (with little to no support).

Conclusion

I’m not here to tell you that AGLOCO will succeed overnight, make you millions, and let you retire before you’re 30. But who’s to say it won’t? The fact of the matter is this is all still really new to everyone. Yea AllAdvantage existed before, but this is radically different in so many ways. It’s idiotic to cast AGLOCO aside because AA went under or because most MLM programs *are* in fact scams. Why not give it the benefit of the doubt? Build your network now while the competition is still relatively low. If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work. You lost no money. Your friends might poke fun at you, but who cares? If it does work you’re making money.