If anyone needs yet more evidence that schemes that pay users cash to watch ads, and then pay more for any other users that you get to sign up (AKA Pyramid Schemes) are nonsense, just see Chris Pirillo’s twitter message, which I have helpfully posted above.

The service in question is called Bux.to. They pay users $0.01 to watch an advertisement for thirty seconds. They also pay $0.01 for every advertisement viewed by anyone that has signed up using your referral code. Sounds great, but there’s one problem – users are complaining that they aren’t getting paid, or are getting paid weeks and weeks after they should have been.

The reason? Bux.to is undoubtedly finding itself in cash flow trouble. Advertisers, I’m sure, are not jumping at the chance to get to users who value their time at $1.20/hour and are only looking at ads because they’re paid to.

AGLOCO, another version of the scheme, went belly up last year. AGLOCO was created by the same team that founded AllAdvantage (also DeadPool) back in the late nineties. Basically, the model doesn’t work, no matter how people try to spin it.

Pirillo is particularly embarrassed about Bux.to, which he pushed hard to users in January. They aren’t paying him, and they won’t contact him.

It’s not often in a post that I get to explain a situation by saying both Caveat Emptor and Occam’s razor. If something looks like it’s a scam, it’s probably a scam.

Update: In a moment of total geek nirvana, I am watching Chris Pirillo read this blog post live on his Ustream channel (and you can now see him reading this update as well – ok, enough):