Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins

a very entertaining, highly-recommended, and intense gonzo video essay on the topic of the courses scams ▶ this video

> This is what I call meta advice. That’s what I call a grift. Your description reminded me of Dan Olson’s fantastic video on that type of strategy—where you make money by selling the idea that anyone can make passive income by doing something the seller doesn’t themselves do (anymore)—using the Mikkelsen Twins as the example. In Dan’s words (emphasis mine), the Mikkelsen Twins aren’t special, grifters like them are a dime a dozen. He chose them as the example “because they are of a type. They are a representative sample of a category of grift. And also because they’re kind of incompetent and that makes them entertaining ”. He’s not wrong. ▶ this video

The 'book factory business oppportunity' trend spotted in the article is explored in depth in this excellent Dan Olson video: ▶ this video It is a great and informative watch.

If you want an overly long slightly different version of that video, you could check out the Folding Ideas video ▶ this video

Zoe Bee did a video essay[0] on her experience as a ghostwriter producing essentially the kind of junk that is now being automated with LLMs. In her case she was (somewhat unknowingly) paid to write unlicensed Minecraft stories. I think the video is worth a watch if you're not aware of the state of ebooks (especially on Amazon) prior to LLMs. It's also worth mentioning that this problem isn't limited to ebooks. There's also a cottage industry of mass produced minimal-effort audiobooks on Audible as part of various "passive income" scams. Dan Olson made a pretty good video essay[1] about one such scam where he actually played along for most of it and also gave it a try as a ghostwriter. [0]: link [1]: ▶ this video EDIT: Considering the most cited examples are Amazon/Kindle and Audible, I think parallels can also be drawn to the proliferation of no-name brand Chinese whitelabel dropshipping products on regular Amazon. Everyone already knows not to trust Amazon reviews but at this point it's hard to find reputable brands for products you're not already familiar with (e.g. which of the one hundred brands featuring near identical products are actually brands you might find in a retail store rather than a random name slapped on the product in the same Chinese factory?). LLMs will definitely make reviews even more untrustworthy but they might also help generating even more plausible copycat product descriptions and designs.

> One possible future is going back to a medium with higher cost of publication. Books. The grifters are all over that already. No AI necessary to generate and publish drivel. See “Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins”¹ by Dan Olson² for an informative and entertaining documentary on the matter. ¹ ▶ this video ² A.k.a Folding Ideas. A.k.a. the creator of “Line Goes Up – The Problem With NFTs”.

Folding Ideas on youtube has an excellent explanation of the business model behind the rise of EBook Spam. The Mikkelson Twins are running a massive MLM scheme but instead of steak knives or scented candles, it's "training and support for creating your own EBook Passive Income Stream" which leads to what we see on Amazon ebook listings. The video also goes into the darker side of the incentives that lead people to commission ghostwriters, AI editors and the crushing labour demands of the people employed to write these books: ▶ this video

Reminds me of the excellent folding ideas video on these sort of scams: ▶ this video In the video he talks about a course (which is a scam) selling a different scam of getting a ghostwriter to write a crappy book, getting someone else to record it, and then publishing it to audible to make money. which seemingly did work for a short period of time but no longer does. I guess this is the same sort of thing, except cutting out the ghostwriter.

Somewhat related, and might give insight. This seems like the next step of the "hustle culture" this video explores, definetly worth a watch: ▶ this video People looking to get rich quick write (or pay sweatshops to write) very low effort, poorly researched books about obscure topics. They put them on amazon, maybe make some money, then repeat. The video explores one of those buyable programs to get you involved in all of that. Seems like chatGPT is being used as the next tool in this process

Apparently, you've never watched those start-up tutorials sold on YouTube. Half the course is spent on arguing that by paying $2000 to learn how to make your own iOS apps, you're "investing in yourself". And of course the people that run the course make most of their money from running the course and not from actually releasing iOS apps... I recommend "Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins" by "Folding Ideas" ▶ this video

Relevant high quality and interesting video that dives in to the world of get rich quick book dumping schemes: ▶ this video

Dan Olsen ("Folding Ideas") actually uploaded a video about KDP spamming, "Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins" ▶ this video , in September 2022 just before ChatGPT 3 hit. Basically the whole turnkey infrastructure to automatically turn a prompt into a Kindle book was in full operation by then, just with human ghostwriters on Web portals in place of LLMs.