Imagine if you could make a dollar every time you handed someone a special sheet of paper. To earn the dollar, all you’d have to do is get people to read that sheet of paper.

Normally, you’d think making money in this fashion would be the greatest thing since sliced bread. However, you’d soon find out that you’d have a very big problem on your hands: copycats.

Generate a lot of cash for yourself and people will no doubt take notice. Not only will they copy your business model, but they will do anything they can do make their business look good while making yours look bad.

Enter the infamous paid survey site. Websites that claim you can make big bucks by taking a few surveys online every now and then.

It wasn’t long ago when I first saw one of these sites and thought to myself: “Wow, what a great way to make a little extra cash for myself.”

Little did I know, this was just one of a million other survey sites out there basically offering the same type of deal. I was under the impression that the site I joined was reputable and unique.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. Hundreds, if not thousands of these paid survey sites exist. Unfortunately 99% of them are exactly the same.

Why so many clones you ask? It’s because paid survey sites are similar to the “sheet of paper” example that I mentioned early. Paid survey sites are a profitable business, and they’re incredibly easy to copy.

Let’s take an example:

Joe spends a Sunday afternoon surfing the web and stumbles across a paid survey site. He reads that he can get paid for his opinion by taking surveys online. All he has to do is pay an upfront membership fee to access the database of companies that send out the surveys.

Joe signs up, pays the membership fee, takes a few surveys and makes a few extra bucks. Joe then becomes aware that this paid survey site business model works like a charm. It was able to convince him to pay to access the directory, so why wouldn’t it be able to convince other people?

Joe then decides to create a survey site of his own. He already has the big list of survey companies from the site he joined prior. The only thing he has to do is register a domain name, purchase a web host, throw together a page and voila: a new paid survey site is born!

So now, not only does Joe receive money from the surveys he’s taking, but also from the upfront membership fee he charges his visitors to access the exact same list of survey companies that got him started in the first place!

Each person that signs up at Joe’s new website represents yet another chance that he or she will take notice of this survey site business model and create one themselves.

Thus you can see just how quickly these types of sites are copied. They really do multiply faster than bacteria!

But what does this mean for you?

Well, quite frankly, you’re getting ripped off. Not only are these paid survey sites copycats of one another, the list of companies that they charge you for is actually available for free!

Yes, you read that right. These survey companies are not top secret classified C.I.A documents. They’re all out there on the web to be found. They’re just looking to do market research and they need help from people like you to give opinions on their products.

The trouble lies in knowing where to find these companies. That’s the relief these paid survey sites provide. Upon paying the membership fee, you are given access to a huge, neatly organized list of companies that send out the surveys.

But I’d wager you’d have a grumbling feeling inside your stomach knowing you’re paying for something that you know is freely available. Am I right?

Those were my feelings as well, so I decide to do some legwork and create a website listing some of the top survey companies without charging a fee upfront to access them.

After all, not everyone wants to be known as bacteria.