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Don’t Make Money With AGLOCO
By Max | May 19, 2007
The year is 2000. Everyone and their brother is super excited about this newfangled internet thing. Money is so easy to make on the internet that you have to be an idiot to miss out on the action. Companies are popping up right and left, going IPO on the stock market and striking internet gold.
Around that same time, a new startup called AllAdvantage started paying people to surf the internet while they ran an advertisement program. My friend wrote a quick program that would simulate web surfing all night long and we made a few bucks. I think I got a check for $20 while he made $60 or so. A few months later, the stock market started tanking and AllAdvantage finally realized their business model was absolutely stupid and closed the doors. Or so I thought.
AGLOCO is a new company that is run by the former founders of AllAdvantage. I think these guys are trying to set records for failed companies or something, because AGLOCO is turning out to be a huge disappointment. Just like AllAdvantage, AGLOCO will have ads displayed on your computer while you surf the internet. Supposedly users will also be paid to run the viewbar. Unfortunately, after creating a lot of buzz behind their new company, these guys can’t seem to get the viewbar released. How hard can it be to create an ad display program? This is just the start of the problems.
One big problem with AllAdvantage was the fact that it was so easy to game the system. If my friends and I were faking internet surfing all night long, I am sure plenty of other people were too. AGLOCO supposedly fixes this problem by only allowing 5 hours a month to count towards your surfing time. I think that isn’t really a good solution, but I guess they aren’t sharp enough to come up with a better one. Assuming their company works (which it won’t) they are going to be missing out on a lot of revenue from people who run the viewbar for the requisite 5 hours and then turn it off each month. A lot of people use the internet far more than that.
Another problem with AGLOCO is that they are unclear about what you will actually receive when you run their viewbar. AllAdvantage promised and gave cash. AGLOCO has some kind of weird plan to issue shares of stock based on how many hours you and your referrals have accumulated. In typical pyramid scheme fashion, the more people you get to run the viewbar, the more “shares” you’ll receive.
The math on this whole plan just doesn’t work out. AGLOCO is not going to make a lot of money from a single person surfing the internet for 5 hours a month. Therefore, they are not going to be able to pay out much to an individual who runs the viewbar for their allotted time. Accounting for expenses and referral payouts just doesn’t leave much money left over.
Lets run through a quick example of how this could work.
Assume that advertisers pay $1 to display an ad on someone’s viewbar for 5 hours a month. I think that may even be a little high, since showing a small ad on someone’s screen for 5 hours doesn’t guarentee a click. Take 10% for expenses, and 10% for the referrals. $0.80 might be left over for the surfer. Now is $0.80 enough money to entice someone to run this weird advertising program for 5 hours a month? No I don’t think so. Even if it was 5 times that amount, people aren’t going to be too interested. They are going to be especially disenchanted when they realize they aren’t getting any cash in their pockets, but a share of stock which isn’t worth anything since the company isn’t public.
Sure the people at the top of the pyramid who have a lot of referrals are going to be accumulating a lot of shares based on the people below them, but to sustain a pyramid, there has to be a lot of people at the bottom who have no referrals. I am one of those bottom feeders. 
Once people at the bottom realize what a waste it is for them to be running this viewbar, they are going to stop. Then the next level of people will quit the program since they won’t be earning anything either. This is how pyramid schemes fall apart.
There is a chance for the guys at the very top to do well. They will have to rely on a steady churn of referrals beneath them to prop up their earnings. Theres so many people in the world, that new signups could occur frequently enough to sustain them. I don’t think it will be easy though, since they will constantly have to promote their AGLOCO referral link to achieve this.
Maybe I’ll be wrong about all this. Some pyramid schemes have sustained themselves for long periods of time. Perhaps earning shares could keep interest levels high for the bottom feeders better than low cash payouts. They might get tricked into believing those shares will one day be worth something. I doubt it.
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May 19th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Pyramid schemes are short lived, but they can usually sustain themselves for a small amount of time if the members have invested something in the scheme. In this case, the only money investors are advertisers (if there really are any) and everyone else just invests time (which is high in supply and low in demand if the deluge of ‘make money blogging about making money’ blogs are any indication).
One interesting thing about this is the concept of limited liability and the foundation of the company (two separate entities). It looks like AGLOCO is incorporated in Hong Kong while a parent ‘management’ company takes 10% of the budget. I what happens if AGLOCO screws all of the money investors over (again, if there are any). It seems like the liability buck stops at AGLOCO (i.e. they could get sued for everything they are worth) and the parent company can laugh all of the way to the bank with its 10% of whatever.
May 19th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Typically the investors are left holding the bag if something like that would happen.
I just think that if AGLOCO “fixed” the problems of AllAdvantage by lowering the amount small frys at the bottom of the pyramid get paid, then the base will crumble even faster, although the company may be able to remain solvent longer.
May 20th, 2007 at 9:03 am
I liked the original AllAdvantage. I got several $20 checks myself. This new scheme doesn’t seem like I will be able to scam it to make me lots of money so it isn’t worth my time!
May 21st, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Yeah, I think a lot of people are going to realize that the 10 shares in their account don’t mean anything unless the company can go public, which it may have trouble doing if everyone realizes this about the same time and stops using the system.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Nice write up on Agloco, I agree with alot of it. But I hope you are wrong too on a lot of it. I have 33 direct referrals and I just wish they would hurry up and release than dam viewbar before everyone in my downline forgets what Agloco is. I spent $300 bucks just to get that 30…..
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:59 pm
If you got referrals who are likely to be motivated to sign up their own friends, then 33 could build a good network. Its the quality of referrals that matters, not the quantity.
I signed up for AGLOCO, but I don’t think I’ll even install the viewbar. It has taken a long time to get the viewbar ready, and I think that will hurt its initial impact, but most people will still probably give it a try.