ShopMy: When Everyone Becomes an Influencer Looking for a Cut

ShopMy understood something simple but genius: influencers aren't just mega-celebrities with millions of Instagram followers. They're your friends, your coworkers, that random person in a forum thread. Give anyone the ability to monetize product recommendations, and suddenly everyone becomes a potential salesperson. The model works—it democratizes influencer marketing, dragging it away from the usual suspects.

But here's where Bloomberg raises the uncomfortable question: when everyone can earn money recommending stuff, how do you know if they're suggesting that product because it's actually good, or just because they're cashing in? It's the simplest and most annoying question in the world, and it doesn't have an easy answer. Trust online was already fragile; with ShopMy, it risks becoming just another product on the shelf.

The mechanics are transparent, at least in theory: share a link, someone buys through it, you pocket a cut. Nothing new—it's affiliate marketing that's been around for twenty years. Except it used to be done by blogs, YouTubers, newsletters. Now your coworker can do it. The barista. That guy you met once at a party. The number of people incentivized to push you toward a specific product just multiplied by a terrifying factor.

Here's the biggest irony: ShopMy wasn't born for this. The idea was creating a space where people share their favorite discoveries and earn a little in the process. Sounds almost noble when you say it like that. But reality is you've created an army of unconscious (or very conscious, depending on the person) salespeople with every reason in the world to get you to buy things.

For ShopMy, it's a win: more recommendations, more links, more potential transactions. For the people on the receiving end? It's a mess. You're constantly asking yourself: is this person helping me or scamming me? It's the dark side of democratization—when you give everyone the same tools, they don't all use them in good faith.