SFI: Affiliate Scam or Genuine Opportunity?

I joined SFI recently. I was hesitant about it at first, knowing that it's proud of its "affiliate opportunities"--which in the language of work-at-home scams means, "I bought into a scam. Please join me so that I don't have to feel so bad about it!" In fact, I probably wouldn't have joined at all if it weren't for my awesome sponsor... but that's for another article. Anyway, I joined SFI a few weeks ago, and here's an inside look at what I found:

First, the good. It's a lot bigger than I thought it was. SFI owns the online TripleClicks store, which I've been hearing about lately. It also boasts 100,000 ways to earn (though I still have to learn what most of those are). If you want, you can focus exclusively on selling things through TripleClicks. Even better, if you can't get anyone to buy except yourself you'll still find yourself earning through it by the end of the month. How does that work?

When you first sign up, you're encouraged to explore and participate in the SFI website. In return for visiting pages and reading popular articles, you can earn VersaPoints, which (among other things) translate as shares of TripleClicks. If you earned at least 1500 VersaPoints in the span of the month, you get paid according to your number of shares. VersaPoints can be earned very easily when you first start out with SFI, and also for every SFI member you refer. However... that also leads me to the bad.

The bad: No matter how much SFI brags about its many ways to earn and the importance of TripleClicks, it all comes back to affiliate marketing. If you can talk people into buying from "your" store as opposed to Amazon or Ebay, good for you, but the rest of us can only hope to earn by sponsoring more affiliates. It gets old fast. Also, the community is not nearly as close and tight-knit as it pretends to be. It's very hard to contact support, and if you just stick to asking fellow affiliates, there's a good chance that they won't be able to help you. Plus, SFI cuts corners. I joined in the end of March, and earned about 1000 VersaPoints in my first few days. I was excited to finally earn my first 1500 and be able to get paid for it... but that never happened. By the time I reached 1500 VP, it was April. It doesn't matter how many points you can earn, so long as you earn it within the same month. That being said, I confess I feel cheated compared to everyone who joined just a few days after I did and will get their money without having to refer anyone or sell anything.

My conclusion? Enter at your own risk. Even though there is decent business being conducted there, it's predominantly an affiliate scheme and it's hard to work around that. Can you earn from it? Yes. Is it a scam? Not really. Is it a good idea? I guess all that depends. I'll try to keep up with it for a while to see if it goes anywhere, but I'm not letting my hopes go up. You can make up your mind for yourself, and I do encourage you to check it out if you're curious here.