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

(9to5google.com)
662 points tantalor | 3 comments | 31 Mar 25 18:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.417s | source
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elamje ◴[31 Mar 25 21:12 UTC] No.43540034[source]▶
Have a friend high up at one of the “Big 3” in this space.

The entire business model is predicated on injecting themselves as the last click for attribution even when they weren’t remotely responsible for the conversion. Cool business, but can’t keep going on forever without someone catching on.

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threeseed ◴[31 Mar 25 21:49 UTC] No.43540359[source]▶
> but can’t keep going on forever without someone catching on

But despite a lot of coverage they've only lost about 1/5 of their user base.

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1. whycome ◴[01 Apr 25 00:27 UTC] No.43541547[source]▶
Apathy? Communications spin? Lack of technical understanding? I suspect some people installed it on a whim based on the recommendation of someone and then forgot about it.
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2. not_kurt_godel ◴[01 Apr 25 01:00 UTC] No.43541748[source]▶
Scam culture thrives on apathy and ignorance, just count this as yet another win for the bad guys who profit immensely off our increasing societal stupidity
3. wingworks ◴[01 Apr 25 03:47 UTC] No.43542644[source]▶
Well, what do the end users care. So long as they get there honey $$. Yes, sucks for the real referer, and youtube creators doing the promoting (though they probably got paid more directly from Honey to do the ad then they would've gotten from there affil links).

Though, like what was exposed, Honey does a poor job for the end user too. There are other cashback sites out there doing what Honey claims/does, but passes on more to the end user. Though they're all taking the referral $$ from the real referer, if there was one.