Wasn't long ago I was reading a real estate investment forum where they talked about real estate as being a means of "wealth creation" and not necessarily an "investment" per se. Point being a lot of those guys would like to stop hustling after they get to a certain point and then invest in something safer...not sure what that is in the real estate world.
Maybe triple-net commercial leases where you buy a property, get Walgreens or some investment-grade credit company to sign a 25 year lease, they pay all maint, insurance, property taxes, and you basically do nothing but collect their checks until the lease runs out. You only make 5-6%/yr over the course of that deal, but theoretically the property gets paid off over those 25 years and then you own a multi-million $ commercial building free and clear. Just have to hope your tenant doesn't go bankrupt in the meantime. Need big bucks for this though.
Anyway, just wondering if the particular breed of affiliate marketing discussed on these forums is seen by most to be a means of "wealth creation" on the road to doing something perhaps safer, or more long-term.
A more long-term investment in this industry may be owning the network, owning the traffic source, building the next linkedin, etc...who knows. If I did I'd probably already be doing it.
It's definitely wealth creation rather than a long term business.
Affiliate marketing is what it is. It's a great way to get a massive return on your money in a very short space of time. But when the industry changes at a rate of seemingly every week, and when a profitable campaign can hit the skids overnight, it's by no means a long term solution. Especially if you value your hairline and like your blood pressure to not be skyrocketing through the roof.
A genuine long-term investment means owning the product and calling the shots. Affiliate marketers are just glorified middlemen, and although it can take many years for the frustration to reach melting point, I'm pretty sure it'll happen to most of us eventually. It's already reached that point for me.
Most of my work is now involved in creating products and developing assets of real world value. The affiliate stuff... eh, it's just a mechanism to fund the other projects. A very effective mechanism, but it is what it is. You'd be setting yourself up for a big fall if you expected to be doing the same thing 30 years from now, or even 1 year.