Honey has now lost 4M Chrome users after shady tactics were revealed

It's ironic that probably the biggest victims were youtubers and other "influencers" who mindlessly promoted this extension to their viewers, for money of course.

Genuine question I was wondering when this went down - wasn’t this completely unknown at the time? If that’s the case, I feel like I can’t blame those who promoted it. I don’t have all the info though.

I believe there were some rumors that it was happenning, but not too public.

I think I remember seeing a blogpost about Honey extension being a very bad idea from security perspective way before the public outcry and it might had mentioned the attribution(right term?) too.

> wasn’t this completely unknown at the time

I would have thought was obvious from the beginning that Honey was making some of its money from affiliate programs; affiliate programs are the standard thing that "shopping" extensions use to make money, leaving aside the much shadier things that even more malicious extensions do (see the various articles on the offers extension authors receive).

I'd always assumed the people promoting it made more money from the sponsorship than they lost from lost affiliate links. The recent discussions suggest that's not the case.

It was no secret, but perhaps not well known. I was a bit surprised when I saw all the recent discussion about it blowing up as I was already aware that's how it worked, but maybe it didn't get enough attention until the right people talked about it.

There is a post on here from a few years ago talking about it. When the scandal broke out people linked it but I can't find it now. We might understand how it works, being tech people, but the vast majority of people most likely have no idea.

If they didn't know how it works, then how could they promote it as an awesome tool and something good? I expect people to have some integrity, not "god money above all" mentality.

You can and IMHO actually should blame them for promoting crap. No sympathies on my part towards promoters of Honey, to be honest. Especially the so called "tech" channels. But this time they've tasted their own medicine.

BTW., here's a very interesting comment about the issue with regards to LTT: https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1hkbtlr/peop... .

The problem is Honey was dishonest about how it works.

Their marketing claimed that Honey automatically applied coupon codes for various online retailers during the checkout phase. Nobody really had a problem with this.

What got found out and landed Honey in hot water, is the affiliate link hijacking behavior which they did not disclose. Basically, any time you follow an affiliate link with Honey installed, it replaces the original affiliate code with their own. Leading to this flow:

1. YouTuber takes Honey Sponsorship and their followers install Honey.

2. YouTuber posts new content, with affiliate links for equipment or parts.

3. YouTuber sees their affiliate links aren't getting near the amount of traffic they used to despite their videos performing just as well as before.

LTT found out about the affiliate code changes and dropped Honey as a sponsor. The problem is, when they drop a sponsor it's usually only announced on their forum page. Linus considered making a video for a wider audience but was worried he'd get shit on for bringing up an issue that technically only impacted him.

Remember: before MegaLeg's video the only thing that was known was the affiliate code ripping, and it was only known by a handful of YouTubers warning each other in private.

My personal opinion is that they should have sounded the alarm, even though the only people getting scammed were creators, because it was a broader attack on the whole YouTube ecosystem and not just LTT. Hell, there's even precedent for LTT making self-interested YouTube videos; remember when their Amazon affiliate account got shut down and they had to beg Dread Pirate Bezos to be reinstated? YouTube creators that are pushing people to products and services should be willing and able to completely trash those services if they turn out to be shit - or, at the very least, are being shit to them.

I thi k that's the issue though. The YouTubers promoting Honey weren't really telling us what they personally felt about honey, they were telling us what Honey wanted them to say.

Let's be real, LTT didn't want to bite the hand that feeds him. What future sponsor would sign up if they knew LTT might make an expose about them in future for clicks.

Even something basic like exposing how much these sponsors pay out in commission instead of towards the quality of their products would be hugely negative publicity.

Shops could also pay Honey to use a lower % off code instead of them finding ones and giving that, so maybe there's a 10% code out there but Honey only gives users a 2% one because they got paid by the shop, and tells the user they tried their best. It's a scam in all directions.

It's actually a trrickle-down system. Smaller youtubers who have never heard of the extension (let alone were approached to advertise) may be hurt the most, because a larger youtuber who took the deal advertised it. e.g. a tech youtuber could be hit a lot if Linus Tech Tips advertise Honey, because they have a strong overlap in subscribers.

It was something a youtuber I was subscribed to was talking about in how he was still seeing his affiliate numbers drop overthe last year or so, and it was actually putting his existing deals in danger. Then as a test after the expose, he asked a few family members who did use his links if they also installed Honey. He definitely never advertised Honey himself.

> What future sponsor would sign up if they knew LTT might make an expose about them in future for clicks.

ideally, ones that don't want to secretly sap at his revenue stream.

It’s actually quite amusing as LTT used to have viewers bookmark their Amazon affiliate link in place of Amazon.com. Live by the sword…

Hm, you actually may be right. Those, who promoted it, at least got some money back for that promotion. Others lost money without getting anything back from Honey. Damn, that's even worse.