The linked MSNBC article is correct on a lot of points. To many people, Quixtar is a cult. They buy the books and CDs, go to all the seminars, etc. They put more money into Quixtar than it gives them, which is stupid.
i was recommended to Quixtar by a couple of people on different occasions. The first time was a couple who tried to get me to buy a plane ticket to Chicago and a hotel room to attend a conference with them. Beforehand, they invited me to a conference where the speaker talked about how much money he made, how many people he had in his business, and how easy it was to do. i'm always wary of anything that'll make you rich and do it quick and easy, so i did some numbers based on what they gave me, using very realistic figures for the number of people i thought i could recruit, and saw it wasn't for me.
A couple years later i found out that some of my family was involved in Quixtar. One of my uncle's introduced it to me correctly, and i got really interested in it, but still couldn't see myself with enough people to make it viable in the long run.
i've still got an uncle who is very passively working his business with Quixtar. He doesn't go to any of the meetings, or buy any of the support materials. He gets a check for something like $20 a month from his commission. Granted, that's not a lot of money, but the fact is, he gets a check regardless of whether he recruits new people or not. If you can't see the potential of something like that, or if you simply don't want to deal with the motivational marketing BS that they want you to buy, Quixtar and most MLMs probably aren't for you.