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

(9to5google.com)
657 points tantalor | 1 comments | 31 Mar 25 18:28 UTC | HN request time: 2.122s | source
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dpbriggs ◴[31 Mar 25 21:20 UTC] No.43540107[source]▶
Why do retailers put up with Honey? They're clearly not providing value with the attribution theft. Why give them money?
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zonkerdonker ◴[31 Mar 25 21:26 UTC] No.43540167[source]▶
Extortion, essentially. Honey will actually give users the largest available discount if the retailer doesn't buy into the affiliate program (i.e. the retailer loses money). If they do agree, then the retailer can limit the coupons and discount code shown to customers through Honey.
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gruez ◴[31 Mar 25 21:33 UTC] No.43540224[source]▶
Sounds like more of an issue for the consumer than the retailer? Suppose the best coupon for a retailer is 20% off, and Honey shows that to its users. Retailers want to stem that loss, so they bribe/pay Honey, maybe 5%, to post a 10% coupon in its place. That way the store loses 15% rather than 20%. That might be bad for the consumer, if they thought they were guaranteed the "best" deal, but I'm not sure how the store has any standing to sue. If so, that would put forums like slickdeals at risk.
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ryandrake ◴[31 Mar 25 21:43 UTC] No.43540313[source]▶
It seems like the whole system would be so much better without coupons. Retailers should charge a single transparent price without having everyone have to go trawling around the Internet for coupon codes which may or may not work, and then being mad because some customers found bigger coupons, which you really didn't want them to find. And other customers using coupon finders who themselves are opaque and sometimes give out good coupons and sometimes don't, and then they use the whole coupon system to do other opaque things to skim money. Good grief! The whole system seems to be set up to reward 1. middlemen and 2. customers willing to deal with a ridiculous system for a discount.
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1. miki123211 ◴[31 Mar 25 22:29 UTC] No.43540653[source]▶
> The whole system seems to be set up to reward [...] customers willing to deal with a ridiculous system for a discount.

That's not all of what coupons are for.

They're also a form of advertising. If you give them out to an influencer in your niche who can bring you great customers, you can make a lot of extra profits.

Imagine you're making an app for managing hair dressing salons. If there's a particular Youtuber popular among hair dressing salon managers, you can do a deal with them where their viewers get 20% off on the first year of their subscription to your app, and the influencer gets an extra 3% of that revenue.

You do this because you expect that people watching that channel are already hair dressing salon managers, and hence are very likely to become big spenders with your company once they start using your services. It's a great deal for everyone.

Honey turns that on its head by indiscriminately offering that influencer's valuable voucher code to everyone, reglardless of whether they've seen any of their videos.