A finer distinction might be between MLMs (where the multi-level part is very literal — everyone is being garnished by their upline and profiting from their downline), vs. flat marketing organizations that just give (centralized, corporate, one-time) recruitment bonuses to their salespeople.

Vector Marketing, for example — the company that sells Cutco knives door-to-door — might be incredibly scummy, sure. Their entire business model is to

1. talk college students into thinking they can make a continuous monthly profit by selling $800 knife sets (when really the profit is one-time at best, by tapping into each college student's family and friends — who are only sympathetic enough to buy the knives [if they even are], because it's their family/friend asking);

2. forcing those college students to "buy into" the company, purchasing a knife-set of their own to use in sales demos (which they can't return if they quit);

3. and also forcing those college students to recruit other college students on campus.

But, because every transaction is ultimately just lining Vector Marketing's pockets directly — without any revenue structure involving making more money as you recruit others whose sales "become your sales" — it's not Multi Level Marketing.

It's just sleazy.

(And yes, this is just me taking this opportunity to rant about Vector Marketing. I have half a Cutco knife set laying around, from when my college roommate attended a "job offer" and got essentially bullied into buying a set before they could leave. Every time I use it, I think of how tarnished the Cutco brand is by these awful tactics of Vector Marketing's practices. Which is a shame, because they're decent knives. But obviously not knives I'd ever recommend anyone buy, because I don't want to support a company that thinks it's a good idea to work with a company like Vector Marketing.)