[aurbano]

Referral links are the most amazing financial product I've ever seen.

I'll start from the end: Companies get FREE advertising from YOU, and unless you get them an actual customer, they don't pay.

Effectively companies are “forcing” you to advertise for free (forced by your desire to "make easy money"), and then they pay you a commission if you get them a paying customer.

And you may fail to realise that you are already paying them by placing their ad in your page. Because in order for you to get money, you need to get them a click that ends in a paying customer. You could have pointed that customer to something you owned and theoretically you could have received the full value of their purchase. So losing that is a payment you make in order to "refer" a customer... Its crazy!

[IanCal]

This is a remarkable use of the word "force".

Companies offer to buy purchasing customers from you. It's up to you if you want to take that deal or not.

> I'll start from the end: Companies get FREE advertising from YOU, and unless you get them an actual customer, they don't pay.

Essentially, commission based sales.

> You could have pointed that customer to something you owned and theoretically you could have received the full value of their purchase.

Along with all the costs of actually selling something, and assuming I have something to actually sell.

Let's phrase regular sales in the same way, and it sounds even worse.

Suppliers are "forcing" you to get stock from them (forced by your desire to "sell products and make money"), and make you pay for it even if you never manage to sell it on! You're paying them directly and have to then store it and convert the customers. The risk is entirely on you as well.

You could have sold things you built entirely from scratch. So all that purchasing cost is a payment you make in order to "sell an item".

Referral links are one of the simplest and most obvious products to me, it's just a middleman. Sell an item and get X, with no upfront commitment or cost.

[aurbano]

I agree with you, and I should’ve phrased it differently to get the point across better.

I really enjoy looking at something from an unusual perspective. The upside to you if you’re referring people is what you mentioned, the ability to sell something without any risk or upfront payments. So in reality its a purely symbiotic relationship...

[Illniyar]

Are you kidding? it's the exact opposite.

I as someone with practically zero marketing budget, effectively no web or brand presence compared to what I'm selling and with no expenses for supporting the product can get a percentage of sales from the marketing, development and support efforts of a multi-million dollar international company?

There's nothing that monetizes better then affiliate links (other then building your own service of course), CPM is literally cost per thousand of views and CPC pays cents per click and you have practically zero control over the content.