Why the 1 for 36 Book Exchange is a massive Pyramid Scheme
And how a bunch of people will eventually lose out
For quite some time now, a popular message has been making the rounds. I’ve seen it almost a dozen times on my Facebook or Instagram feed. The claim is simple and tempting: Buy 1 book, receive 36 books in return.
The exact message is as follows:
If you say ‘in’, then you get the following message:
Yay! I’m glad you want to participate! Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Repost the image/text I posted (you can post it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, your blog, etc)
Step 2: Send a book to
________________
________________
The book can be new or used, but you should send a book you love! Write a note on the inside cover (on a piece of paper and put it inside) so they know who and where the book came from!Step 3: When people comment on your post, send them the instructions but change the address in step 2 to my address and change the address in step 3 (this step) to your address!
My Address:
________________
________________Step 4: Receive books!!
Theoretically, if you find 6 people to play along and those 6 people each fund six people, then you should get 36 books!
Pyramid Scheme whaaa?
A pyramid scheme is a super sketchy model where a few top-level members recruit new members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than by supplying investments or sales of products. As recruiting multiplies, recruiting becomes quickly impossible, and most members are unable to profit; as such, pyramid schemes are unsustainable and often illegal.
In the case of the book exchange, the books are the ‘payment’ and are transferred 2 levels above. Therefore, if you recruit 6, and they each recruit 6 more, you could get a theoretical maximum of 36 books.
You could replace the word ‘book’ with $10 and that basically translates to — spend $10 and get up to $360 of products in return. Yeah, seems fishy.
Well, what could go wrong?
Here’s a totally real timeline of one such book exchange, that I totally didn’t make up:
- Alice tells Bobby to make a 1-for-36 books post on Instagram.
- Cori and Deva both see Bobby’s post and go ‘WOW WHAT A DEAL’.
- They both tell Bobby that they want in.
- Bobby tells each of them to send a book to Alice, and to post the message on Instagram to keep the chain going.
- At some point, Deva realizes he can’t recruit anyone because he has no friends.
At the end of this all, Alice is happy, Bobby is alright (he manages to get a book or two from Cori’s recruits), and Deva is deva-stated.
And that’s the problem: usually, only the early adopters benefit because pyramid schemes quickly become unsustainable.
The number of recruits needed at increasing levels forms a geometric series (6, 6², 6³, 6⁴ …). It starts with 1 person but just 8 levels down, it requires more than 1.6 MILLION people to keep it going.
For a pyramid scheme to benefit everyone who enrolls in it, it would have to expand indefinitely. But the population of Earth is finite, and when the scheme inevitably runs out of new recruits, it collapses. Since most people in the scheme will be at the bottom layers of the pyramid, they would have sent a book each but end up receiving nothing in return. Thus, the ones who join early are much more likely to benefit and typically feed off the people at the bottom of the pyramid.
For example, lets see how many people get their books when this pyramid scheme collapses after reaching 7 levels.
- Level 1 to 7 get their books, so 6 + 36 + 216 + 1296 + 7,776 + 46,656 + 279,936 = 335,922 happy people
- Level 8 and 9 don’t get their books, so 1,679,616 + 10,077,696 = 11,757,312 unhappy people
As seen above, a pyramid scheme is characterized by a few people (including the creators of the scheme) reaping large benefits, while subsequent members lose out.
….so do I participate in this book exchange or not?
It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll get 36 books in return. Your friends might have already done it, and there’s also the legitimate concern about divulging personal details such as your address.
That being said, the only way you won’t get anything in return is if exactly 0 of your friends sign up for this, or if some do, exactly 0 of their friends sign up for this.
The entry cost of the book exchange might be a bit for some, but if you’re okay with the cost or if you already have a book that you want to give away, and you’re okay with the possibility of getting anything in return, then you could try your luck to see if you get a book or two back.
But keep in mind that in every pyramid scheme, a TON of people will lose out eventually.
If you’re feeling generous anyway (bless you), you could just give the book away without participating in the scheme, or donate it to your local library, so that a lot more people can read it!
Extra fun stuff:
- The Secret Sister Gift Exchange where participants send each other wine bottles instead of books.
- Customary clip from The Office:
- And a 120% accurate meme—
Purple Theory is a long-form blog that explores diverse topics — life, travel, science, the mind and almost everything else — in a fun and informative way. If you enjoyed reading Purple Theory articles, join the mailing list to get notified about new posts!
