Multi Level Marketing Software?

Has multi-level marketing made its way into software markets, and if so, how?

• I mean MLM as the business model to sell software goods or services, not the use of software to support MLM businesses.

• Answer:

  Disclaimer; the company I work for invested in a company that sold software as a service to the MLM community, and I was heavily involved in supervising their activities. I haven't seen MLM per se show up in software, but there are a giant pile of companies and individuals using affiliate marketing programs that pay "down in tiers" e.g. I sign up as a affiliate, I sell a copy of the software to person X who then decides to sign up as an affiliate and sells to person Y, both X and I make money on that sale, etc down to in some cases 10 levels. So that's multi-level, but it's not a typical MLM compensation structure. It's actually quite popular, and having bought some software via a one such company I get about two offers a day for some new piece of software I can't live without, and about one a week reminding me that I could be making money by promoting their wares.