I've got some familiarity with pyramid schemes. When I was looking for work years ago I almost joined an insurance one. I've had friends and, "Friends," try to sell me on them at various points as well. For those unaware, pretty much anything where you can make more money recruiting people than selling the actual product is, by its nature, a pyramid scheme/multilevel marketing. It can be insurance, Mary Kay Cosmetics, CutCo Knives, True Romance sex toys, Herbalife, Avon, Pampered Chef, or basically anything. My point is, if a major aspect or even the main point of the business is to recruit others so you get money for referrals, downstream/upstream, or any other fancy phrasing, you're in a MLM. If you're okay with that, cool. Some people do very well in such a business as with any prymaid there are, "Levels," above others, making plenty of money...the thing is, a vast majority of folks are there at the bottom. I say all this to bring me to the point of how, when I heard radio ads for something called Fare Co-op, I looked into it. Then, my MLM alarm bells went off.
As with lots of MLM stuff, Fare Co-op sounds absolutely great at first blush. It is a rideshare service that the drivers own a part of, not some big Wall Street company. Co-ops can be great. I was a member of a grocery store co-op when I lived in Upstate New York and would frequent it in Ithaca. You could pay a membership fee, volunteer your time to help the store for membership rights, go to meetings to vote on things where everyone had a voice, and so forth. Fare Co-op makes itself sound like a co-op (I mean, it is in the name), but the more you dig, it becomes abundantly clear that a pyramid is buried under the seemingly green grass. To use another metaphor, even if some aspects do have co-op bones, the lifeblood is strictly MLM.
You tell people who hitch a ride with you via Uber or Lyft that if they were to use Fare Co-op, they can get rides cheaper. You also can recruit other people to drive via Fare Co-op, with all your referrals drawing a percentage back to you (sound the warning klaxon). When the customers or drivers you recruited get new people to try Fare Co-op, you even earn a slice of that, thanks to the tiers (the klaxon is getting louder). If you are there on the ground floor, getting people to use Fare Co-op as it begins to operate in your state, you might theoretically be able to do pretty well. Recruit enough folks and you'll be able to just sit at home watching as the money rolls in thanks to your, "Referrals." That's what MLMs are truly selling, however, and the amount of work you'd need to put in to climb these tiers and make all this money can very well end-up being the same as or less than if you just started your own private transportation company you hyped-up while doing Uber or Lyft, with its own elite fleet of chauffers or such; as I saw people point-out on Reddit, why do all this work for something that at the end of the day, even if you're doing well, you only have a piece?
This is all just my opinion. I've seen people doing Fare Co-op in their states where it is currently operating, being quite pleased with the process/growth/etc. I have noted folks who hated trying it. I am not here to tell anybody driving for Uber or Lyft that they should do Fare Co-op or be sure to avoid it. All I can say is that back when I was sitting in that, "Seminar," about selling insurance which was followed by an, "Interview," where they said how much they wanted to bring me aboard, a little voice inside me was whispering, "Run." I listened to that voice before losing a ton of my time to make very little money. I heard the ads for Fare Co-op, and for a split second, I started to think about how, if it is going to be around here, and I had the time to do something like that, it could be a good opportunity. Then, the little voice spoke up. It went, "Oh, Hell no," and was not even whispering. It did more of a holler that continued, "Come on, man, you've dodged these before." I'm gonna listen to the voice.
Disclaimer: As I repeatedly have said, this is an opinion. I've criticized businesses before to the chargin of some, and one even threatened to sue me for libel before they shut down due to countless customer complaints. I doubt a seemingly big company such as Fare Co-op cares what I have to say, but in the interest of CYA, I've added this disclaimer.
