Hi, Daniel,
Please do not take me for a fool.
I am familiar with this programme and have raised this question many times with other people (and yourself) who have all responded, as you did then and now, with the simple statement "This is not a ponzi because it is not a ponzi" while your own post tends to prove that it is.
There is little discernable difference between a basic free member and an 'upgraded' member and there is absolutely, positively, by your own illustration, nothing sold for the membership fee.
Don't make assumptions about what I might or might not have done by way of research - anybody who has the first idea of how I form my opinions will know that I do not ask questions that I have not fully researched and failed to resolve.
With Friendswin a free member can use exactly the same tools and facilities as a paying member - the upgrade is there purely to create a commission bearing income from membership fees - a ponzi.
The following statement is copied directly from the Friendswin web site - "A feature that makes Friendswin.com unlike any other social networking site is an affiliate compensation plan that pays significant commissions for referrals."
This is not later qualified to say - in return for product.
Payment for recruitment to the recruitor out of the recruit's membership fee is the defining point of a ponzi and the reason so many collapse.
Friendswin, I repeat, appears to have all its' ducks in a row with the exception of this one illegal section of the programme.
Incidentally, I fail to see how demonstrating that you can recruit free members proves that the matrix works nor do I see what relevance it has by way of answering my question. Maybe if you had been able to give a satisfactory answer when I asked a couple of months ago, I would have been in your down line?
The Old Coot