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Comment by jbob2000 | Hacker News Reader

jbob2000

These companies are active in areas of low education. They aren't present in coastal cities because that tends to be where smart, educated people congregate.

Checkout this map of Red vs. Blue states: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/var/plain/storage/images/med...

There is a slight correlation with Red states and high MLM activity. Hmmm....

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This map shows MA, MD, and VT as “red”. These are three of the most reliable Democrat-voting states in the country.

Something is wrong with your map.

This needs to be at a county level. Many blue states are deeply red outside their cities.

Yup. Atlanta is a blue dot in a sea of Georgia red.

Atlanta is a big dot though. With the growth of the Atlanta metro it may eventually make Georgia a blue state in national elections, similar to how the Twin Cities with ~60% of Minnesota population make it vote democratic.

It occasionally happens that Atlanta carries Georgia, but if you look at the composition of our state-wide representation (major office holders), it doesn't historically trend blue.

The article lists a lot of MLM companies that started on the coasts and worked inward, including pretty much every snake-oil "wellness" product supplier.

> that started on the coasts

9 of the 13 companies didn't start on "the coasts".

By my count 6 of the 13 started on the coasts:

ASEA, ATOMY, Jeunesse, Kannaway, LulaRoe, World Global Network

If you count Texas's Gulf Coast the figure would be higher. For many of the rest it's the Mormon effect. Neighbors want to help neighbors and that ends up involving them buying into MLM snake-oil pyramids.

I think it depends on the products, like Rodan & Fields seems to be popular specifically in higher income / educated demographics compared to other MLMs, like I've seen people who seem like they should know better get roped in to RF but they'd turn their noses up to Herbalife.

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