Re:I’m Now a Full-Time Professional Open Source Maintainer
by stakhanov on Friday February 03, 2023 @04:20AM
(#34639050)
By "pyramid scheme" I meant crypto, not Bay-area startups.
> I myself don't refer to anything that isn't paying new customers with old customers money as a pyramid or Ponzi scheme
In Wikipedia's definition, that aspect doesn't seem to be strictly necessary [1]. They define it as "a business model that recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme".
In my mind it also plays a bit of a role whether you're doing that with retail investors vs. high-net-worth or institutional players. A retail investor generally can't invest in startups, but might invest in crypto if their neighbor recently bought some and then talked them into it.
Re:I’m Now a Full-Time Professional Open Source Maintainer
by HPsquared on Friday February 03, 2023 @09:08AM
(#34641200)
A person doesn't get any direct reward for convincing their neighbour to buy crypto, though. Compare to a multi-level marketing scheme where the person would directly sell to the neighbour.
I myself don't refer to anything that isn't paying new customers with old customers money as a pyramid or Ponzi scheme, because I think that trivializes actual pyramid schemes.
But a lot of people do, apparently, and it's completely understandable that a self perpetuating scheme where startups losing money at their core business at a varying rate are constantly sold at higher and higher valuations to see who holds the last hand, is regarded with the same skepticism.