Wow this is terrible and unethical. This means competitors can spam affiliate links from other affiliates and get them banned? Bet365 has to come back on this IMO.
You can't compare PBN's with scrapebox, GSA, SeNuke and other stuff like that. Creating amazing PBN's is something that never will be dead. I'm not talking about your standard Wordpress template PBN's but invest in high quality PBN sites is absolutely something that works now and will work in...
Create outstanding content that can be shared via Social Media. If your content is really good it has the potential to gain natural backlinks.
Invest in a PBN
Build a desktop. You will benefit from it later. Laptops always get slow and laggy.
I would recommend :
i7 processor
16GB+ DDR
SSD Hard Disk
Dual- or Triple Monitor
Good Luck!