Is one no longer allowed to say "I wonder why thing A has properties that resemble thing B" without pretty directly implying "Thing A is exactly thing B"?

My hope was to have a conversation about whether the franchise model is bad in ways that have overtones of scams, or whether MLMs are only scams by virtue of the MLM bit and not because of any of the other behavior that is often called scammy, or any such thing, but apparently that was too much to ask.

> many of them require that you buy a huge chunk of inventory up front whether or not you sell it, which is one of many abusive tactics of current American MLMs

Purchasing unrefundable stock is not inventory loading. It does not “resemble an MLM” in a meaningful way - you might as well say that any company that offers a recruiting bonus to employees resembles an MLM.

If you want to talk about predatory business practices, there’s plenty of it around in the franchise model. When you keep saying “like an MLM” you sound like you think these attributes are specific to MLMs.