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

(9to5google.com)
657 points tantalor | 3 comments | 31 Mar 25 18:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.63s | source
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jabroni_salad ◴[31 Mar 25 19:14 UTC] No.43538651[source]▶
In case you missed it, a co-founder of Honey did an AMA on this topic a few days ago.

https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1jlfms8/im_ryan_hudso...

I'm not a honey user but I thought this section was interesting:

> This gets a bit technical but in the video, Jonathon carefully shows you that the ‘NV_MC_LC’ cookie changes from Linus Tech Tips -> Paypal when a user engages with Honey. What he must have seen is that there is also a ‘NV_MC_FC’ cookie that stays affiliated with Linus Tech Tips and is NOT changed to Paypal. In this case LC stands for ‘last click’ and FC for ‘first click’. In the video he seems to claim that there is no first click cookie and only a last click cookie - this claim is false.

> In my DM conversation with Jonathon he claimed that he noticed the FC cookie but didn’t think it was relevant and that he was confused by it. I wonder, as an investigative journalist, did he think to ask anyone at NewEgg or the affiliate networks to explain it to him before he threw damning accusations at an industry he didn’t understand?

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cbdumas ◴[31 Mar 25 20:41 UTC] No.43539716[source]▶
I saw that and I'm not convinced this changes anything. The fact that Honey is inserting itself into the affiliate attribution chain at all when it did literally nothing is still wrong to me.
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jahsome ◴[31 Mar 25 23:41 UTC] No.43541246[source]▶
There's a very reasonable argument to be made a number of shopers wouldn't convert if they didn't feel like they were getting a "deal." So honey is undeniably aiding in the sale.

It's not "literally doing nothing" to compile and automatically apply/suggest coupon codes. That's literally doing something. Is it valuable? Objectively, yes, hence the millions upon millions of users.

Your statement is either hyperbolic or disingenuous: the very two things people are accusing honey of doing.

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1. eviks ◴[01 Apr 25 02:58 UTC] No.43542365[source]▶
That's how any fraud works - the mark feels like he is getting a good deal. And while the fact that there are millions of marks is an objective fact, it's not an objective indicator of the fraud being valuable to the marks.
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2. jahsome ◴[01 Apr 25 21:08 UTC] No.43551362[source]▶
I fundamentally disagree honey is/was fraudulent. They compiled and distributed coupon codes. The core funtionality exists. It just sucked -- I guess anyway, I was too suspicious and lazy to ever use it myself.
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3. eviks ◴[02 Apr 25 04:09 UTC] No.43553598[source]▶
This is also not a contradiction. If I sell you a fake painting that looks the same, "the core visual functionality" exists