The hidden mental toll of chasing 'passive income' through affiliate marketing

Boxes, a tripod and dozens of opened cosmetic products lie scattered across the floor as the 22-year-old checks her affiliate marketing dashboard. After a week of filming and posting videos, her estimated commission stands at just VND18,225 (US$0.70).

Three months earlier, My had been scrolling through social media when she came across a stream of videos showing creators claiming to earn tens or even hundreds of millions of dong (VND10 million = $384.6) through affiliate commissions.

Her VND8 million salary as an office worker suddenly became proof she was falling behind. Using her credit card, she paid over over VND5 million to buy lights, a microphone, and sample products.

By day she works at a company, and by night locks herself in to edit videos until dawn. But with algorithms becoming stricter, videos with attached affiliate links like hers only garner a few dozen views each. "My daily commission isn't enough to pay the electricity bill for filming," she sighs. "After spending my own money on products and staying up all night, what I get in return is helplessness."

Thu Huong, 28, an administrative worker in HCMC, is in a similar situation after joining "get rich" groups for moms.

The thought of herself livestreaming while watching over her kids, and "making enough money to buy milk and diapers just by attaching affiliate links", caused her to spend over VND8 million on a mini vacuum cleaner, food containers, and smart household appliances for making review videos.

She timed her livestreams to appear around noon and 9 pm, and there were sessions when she would talk for two hours until her throat became hoarse, but attracted few viewers and could not close a single order.

After three months, her commissions totaled less than VND600,000, and product samples are piled up in every corner of her house. "Seeing other people flaunting their large number of orders, I blamed myself for being useless," she says.

The stress has also been causing her to snap at her husband and children, making family life tense.

Several shopping apps currently available in Vietnam. Illustration by Vien Thong

My and Huong are two of hundreds of thousands of young people swept into the recent wave of affiliate marketing.

Videos showing viewers how to "stay at home and earn passive income" and "make hundreds of millions a month with just a phone" flood social media.

The fear of missing out makes many people believe this is an easy path to making money, one that anyone who joins can profit from.

According to the affiliate marketing platform ACCESSTRADE Vietnam, the size of Vietnam's affiliate market increased dramatically in 2026, and is estimated to reach up to $1 billion this year, a 30-fold increase from 2022.

This expansion is tied to the deep penetration of affiliate marketing into the revenue structures of e-commerce platforms. On average, revenues from affiliate programs account for up to 10% of major brands' total revenues, a remarkable jump from a modest 4% in 2022.

Notably, on major e-commerce platforms like Shopee, an estimated 30% of total sales are generated directly from affiliate links of publishers and key opinion consumers.

But the low barriers to entry have caused the market to quickly saturate. A large number of registered publishers end up going inactive, or earn less than VND1 million per month before quietly quitting, due to inventory losses and time pressure.

E-commerce businesses also carry hidden cash flow risks such as order cancellation and return rates, slow reconciliation, and withholding tax obligations. A lack of understanding of cash flows and sunk costs causes many to join the market without knowing when they will break even.

Vuong Nguyen Toan Thien, medical director at the Lumos Psychological Counseling and Therapy Center, says there are no precise statistics on the rate of depression or anxiety among people who do affiliate marketing, but the medical community has flagged what is known as "maladaptive social media addiction."

International meta-analyses involving over 1.1 million young people show that uncontrolled social media scrolling is directly linked to sleep disorders, stress, and depression. "The harm does not lie in how many hours a day you glue your eyes to the screen," Thien says. "The real danger is when you lose self-control and let the habit of checking orders disrupt your sleep, fracture relationships, and drive yourself into psychological dead ends."

According to experts, screenshots flaunting tens of millions in commissions on social media are powerful "bait" that trigger the fear of missing out.

The internet often amplifies the success of a minority into a shared illusion, leading young people to mistakenly believe that anyone can easily transform their lives. They then throw themselves into the race while underestimating the price they might have to pay, forming a habit of constantly checking their screens and unable to disconnect.

Worryingly, the behavior of scrolling one’s phone to count clicks and monitor commissions runs on the same mechanism as the psychology of a gambler, says psychologist Mike Brooks on the mental health blog Psychology Today.

When rewards appear unexpectedly - sometimes zero, sometimes a few dozen thousand, or occasionally hitting a large order - the brain releases a flood of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that generates excitement and expectation. The restlessness, agitation, and inability to concentrate without one’s phone are warning signs of a behavioral addiction, similar to addictions to video games or the lottery.

The higher one’s expectations are, the heavier the psychological shock will be.

After an entire month of staying up all night only to receive meager earnings, young people can also easily slide into a self-worth crisis. The brain shifts from thinking "this approach wasn't right" to self-accusation: "I am a failure."

Any massive discrepancy between effort and income gradually erodes self-compassion, replacing it with helplessness and deep insecurity.

Mental trauma is quickly accompanied by physical exhaustion. Working overnight to edit videos and staying "on standby" during flash sale hours can disrupt one’s natural circadian rhythm.

From a medical perspective, chronic insomnia stimulates inflammatory responses in the body and paralyzes one’s natural immunity. Not only do those who chase commissions online face the risk of infection and physical exhaustion, but they also trap themselves in a vicious cycle: the more stressed they become, the more they lose sleep, and the more sleep they lose, the more easily their mind breaks down.

Thien does not call for affiliate marketers to quit their jobs or boycott social media.

Instead, to break the dopamine loop, he proposes a "structured digital detox", which includes separating content creation time from monitoring time, turning off all order notifications outside of working hours, and only opening the management dashboard 3-4 times a day rather than constantly refreshing it.

Affiliate marketers need to separate their personal value from revenue, grading themselves on content and product quality rather than using hourly commissions as a measure of self-worth, he says.

At night, there needs to be a "digital curfew" during which they need to stop looking at dashboards and turn off the livestream lights to protect their sleep quality.

Every day, maintain one activity that does not generate profit, such as walking, eating meals with family, or reading a book, to remind the brain that not every activity has to be converted into money.

If, despite trying to control it, one still experiences prolonged sleep disorders, anxiety, depression or negative thoughts about their existence, it is no longer a matter of lacking discipline. At that point, they should immediately seek help from a medical professional.