"Get paid to surf the web" - this is the slogan of the biggest, and perhaps most dangerous, hystery flooding the Internet. The phenomenon cannot be missed, everyone actively using the net can see as the pyramids, built from surfers with get-rich-quick dreams, grow ever higher, built upon the two eternal human weakness: naivety and greed.

The avalanche was started by the American firm AllAdvantage in the spring of 1999, when it launched the brand new web marketing concept to promise no less than to revolutionize the relationship between advertising companies and netizens. The new idea met tremendous success among surfers to whom AllAdvantage promised an attractive money-making opportunity.

To summarize the system, it pays registered members $0.50 per hour spent online, if they keep on their screen a "Viewbar" - a small window continuosly running ads. Of course, the possibility to earn 50 cents/hour, coming to $20/month by 40 hour surfing, would not have excited so much the surfers of the world if those concocting the idea had not topped it with a seductively worded MLM (multi-level marketing) system promising an opportunity to make thousands (!) of dollars per month.

In March 1999 the company launched its www.AllAdvantage.com webpage that became popular exceptionally fast. The whole net has been ruthlessly invaded by the AA-mysery, thanks to the promotional power of MLM. The big recruitment drive has started, the new members chasing the dream of easy money tried to build ever bigger pyramids under themselves, using all possible means of web marketing. "Targeted" messages of AA members filled unmoderated email lists, online forums, free classified areas, chat channels; thousands of webpages sported to purple-white AA banner, and began the proliferation of homepages thrown together just for recruiting members, and the aggressive ads to promote visiting these sites. The signup code got built into many individual signature files as well, so the pyramid-builders messages even got into private email. All this led to over 2 million registered members of AllAdvantage within the first 3 months already.

Meanwhile we could suffer time and again the very upsetting experience of spoiled joy of hearing from a long-lost classmate/relative/acquaintance, only to find out the real reason for the call: that is we are wanted as one more member to the guy's MLM network. On the net the acquaintance provides us with a tortuous web address, clicking on which we can get into the club of the Internet get-rich-quickers, but of course only of we take upon ourselves to build the network further.

MLM experts hold that the basis of a good MLM system is a product or service of excellent quality, whose main characteristic is uniqueness to prevent easy imitation. AllAdvantage's system failed this criterion, since its initial apparent success promted newer and newer copycat enterprises built on the same concept, similarly recruiting members by MLM, and at the same time multiplying the ads circulating on the net. The so-called surfmoney programs: Spedia, ValuePay, GoToWorld, Utopiad, DotAD, ePipo, SharkHunt, DeskTopDollars, Surfing2Cash came to notoriety in Hungary too, but also appeared firms, such as AmazingSolution, that pay after email containing ads (is there ANYONE not getting enough email ads without this?), also building by MLM.

Soon, in the summer of 1999, the Hungarian adaptation of AllAdvantage started under the name of Forinter.net. The owner of the website, Bognar Attila admits to follow the American model with the Hungarian version, whose slogan is: "Surf for the Forints of Hungarian Advertisers". However, it is yet to be seen whether he can find advertisers to put forints into the system. The fact is that, despite the promises,  the "Forintbar" was not available for members to download even at the end of the year,and the webpage, just like its copycat Sokpenz.net ("sok penz" means a "lot of money" in Hungarian), is still merely recruiting members.

To the question regarding the spam flood washing over the Internet, Forinter.net owner Attila Bognar answered such: "We strictly forbid spamming. Our Anti Spam Principle, found on our webpage, is called to the attention of all members. We emphasize that Forintern.net is firmly refraining from the use of any method considered spam. Sending unsolicited email to unknown people is prohibited. Also prohibited is the distribution of the Forinter.net system on email lists and other public forums not dealing with business issues. In any event, private email is much more effective than big mailing lists. Violators of our Anti Spam Principle are dropped from the system without prior notice. Unfortunately, we had to cancel several memberships due to this."

All this sounds well, but one can justly ask where is the person whocould follow all the maillists, forums and boards of the net, not to mention the personal emails of promotional intent with thin disguise. The "Anti-Spam Policy" decorates the homepage of AllAdvantage and other systems imitated; it has been shown well enough what moderating power the rational written word means (NOT) to the MLM-builders chasing the dream of riches from the hordes of members recruited. This is much more of a human-ethical question than an internet-specific one, thus cannot be regulated by any policy.

Thus the spam keeps gushing, the MLM-builders animate their magic wand, the worl-wide net that makes easy to reach scores of potential members.

One contributor to the HIX mailing lists on interesting Internet pages fulminated upon the ever-more irritating flood of letters, expressing the opinion of many of us:
 

Homepages written in the "here is the big opportunity" style carry sentences like this: "If you get say 10 persons and thru four level each passes the opportunity to 10 persons, then you make $50,000/month. The opportunity is completely free, there is no obligation of any kind, and you can register in ca. 3 minutes!". To normally thinking people, guarded against "too good to be true" offers, the falseness of the statement is obvious. The error slips into the naive advertisers' calculations when they assume that every member of their group can get that many more others below themselves - while in reality the number of members available for lower levels is always only a fraction that of the higher ones. Thus the actually achiavable commission is far less than calculated, even in the lucky case of a legitimate firm that is willing and able to pay its members and doesn't collapse prematurely.

Interestingly, despite the predictions of those suspecting fraud, AllAdvantage survived and even paid out the first checks to those surfers who entered earliest; they are not for thousands of dollars, however, but for much less than preliminarily calculated. In August 1999 there was on the average $47.77 sent out to the members of the network, according to the official statement by AA (who haven't mentioned that these checks sent out in August are for the three preceding months - this info is only given out by members on affiliate marketing forums, and no data has been made available since). For the minority (like the creators of the idea, the owners of the firm) occupying the top of the pyramid this is grand business regardless.

AllAdvantage is spreading with unwavering ambition, grew into a company employing 300, opened offices in 9 American cities and London, and the number of its registered members approached 4 million by the end of 1999. This encompasses surfers from 240 countries, who are expecting with excitement when will they get the green light for downloading the viewbar. The application necessary for the paid ad- watching is presently only available in the US and Great Britain, but for a long time international expansion has been projected, and the firm promises to reach surfers of France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand in the beginning of year 2000. (please note: this article was written in January 2000 - you might check current status on the alladvantage.com home page)

According to an article in the Financial Times, the biggest danger is that, compared to the tremendous number of applicants, there will not be enough paid advertisement. Certainly the managers of AA know this as well, and presumably they have some idea of exploiting the business opportunity, that is the buying power of the 4 million strong membership (which they call "community"). The alliance of AllAdvantage with Prio.net indicates the prospect of forming a buyers' club, which is getting close to utilizing the collected addresses for targeted marketing or commercial purposes.

The contributor called Lord on the mailing list "webreklam" is right in many respect when he says:
 

It's a good indication for the unpopularity of the new marketing form among advertisers that most PTS (pay to surf) organizers are still at the stage of member recruitment - that is, with neither advertiser nor cash on the horizon. They are pushing the promises further back in time, while letting the registered members to do the effective marketing of the enterprise, and up until locating a paying advertiser to keep raising the visibility and popularity of the homepage and the number of recruited members (registered email addresses).

They can do this easily, thanks to the gullibility of surfers. Those whom I tried to dissuade from being overly optimistic about the prospects of get-paid-to-surf all repeated the same reasoning: "after all, I've got nothing to lose, no money to be paid in advance, joining is for free, and if I happen to make a little money still that'sure profit!".

This reasoning is only seemingly true, since it does not consider the work used in promotion and the efforts wasted. Web-marketing is an activity requiring time and labor, MLM recruitment is not less so. To make matters worse, many use their high traffic homepage to post the ad, thus occupying valuable ad-displaying area with PTS banners. An owner of a website attracting hundreds of visitors daily is better off placing on his pages banners of well operating associate programs, which can generate if not thousands of dollars but respectable side income that can be calculated in advance.

Besides the irritating flood of spam, the other harmful effect of this phenomenon is that the slogan "make money on the internet" has for many become synonymous with online MLM systems; this diverts attention from honest e-business opportunities, even though it was the year 1999 that produced development more spectacular than ever in the area of traditional pay-per-click and pay-per-sale affiliate programs, virtual agencies, and various online marketing opportunities to sponsor website owners.

Since I myself from the start have watched sceptically and only as an outsider the spread of programs promising money for surfing, to give a full view let's hear from some who admittedly invested no little time and effort into building these networks.

Those whom the letters below don't discourage from chasing surfmoney deserve to see the loss of their valuable time, internet knowledge and creativity into this black hole.