YSK "honey", the discount coupon finding browser extensions (owned by PayPal), is a scam stealing commissions from people who actually should get it.

If you're wondering how a browser extension got so much money to pay all these YouTubers for sponsorship, well, they're not. They are literally stealing the money they paid the YouTubers right back from them by replacing their affiliate code with their own.

For people looking for replacements, Edge's integratedauto coupon code works well enough. RetailMeNot does the same job and has also been around for a long time.

Rent-seeking middlemen. This is the pinnacle of capitalism. Taking revenue while providing nothing is maximum efficiency. You can tell because it raises prices invisibly for everyone.

This is just a baby version of how credit card companies have placed a 1%-5% sales tax on the global economy. You might say "at least the CC companies provide a service", but that tax get's added no matter if your using a CC or not.

Why am I entirely not surprised that LMG knew what the fuck was going on, and didnt say a fuckin thing about it.

Made more public comments over legitimate criticism about his "just trust me, bro" warranty, than about honey being a out and out scam.

I knew Honey was sketchy, but I just assumed it made it's money from just data harvesting everything

I'm glad this information is coming to light because I think that it should be fixed, at least as far as the affiliate link piece goes, but I find myself irritated by the sensationalism of the poster.

They're really pushing to make this seem as evil as possible, and milking it for every drop it's worth. Making this a two-part series and not exposing it immediately feels super shitty to me.

Just post the full information you have, if this is really so bad, stop trying to farm clips.

Also, not enough focus on the timeline. Honey's business model has changed dramatically since it was released long ago, and I feel like the part two video is going to complain about the original Honey business model, which was literally just a coupon code aggregator, just based on the "cliffhanger" at the end

In the entire time I used Honey, I never once got a valid coupon code for literally anything. Pretty sure they scraped a ton of my browsing data though.

You mean a free extension that claims to give me discounts seemingly out of the goodness of their hearts that also has access to every website I go to in the browser where it is installed is not exactly on the level? I'm shocked.....well...not that shocked.

So the TL:DW version seems to be that honey changes or adds an affiliate link to get a commission on the sale. Similar programs like Capital One Shopping probably do the same thing.

Honestly, I don’t give a shit. I hate affiliate links no matter who gets them. They are the real scam.

Sounds link the real solution is to use it to identify potential coupon codes. Then clear cookies, resign in, and enter the code yourself. But it’s not like that yields a cheaper price, so I’m not even sure I care.

It's not just Honey swapping the affiliate codes. Practically all the major coupon sites do it too. That's why they require you to click on a coupon code to reveal it. When you click, they usually reveal the coupon code in a new tab, and helpfully redirect the current tab to the store, using their affiliate link.

It's more obvious when websites do it though, since they can't auto-close the tab like Honey does. They also don't automatically pop up at checkout like Honey does.

I imagine some of the other coupon extensions do the exact same thing as Honey though.

Lmao, I never trusted a browser extension.

Like, immediately "Too Good To Be True" red flags were raised.

If I want coupon codes, I could just google "Coupon Codes for [shopping platform]"

If you dont know how a business makes money, chances are its some shady stuff

Providing coupons on stuff for free, with zero ads? Thats pretty weird. Being Bought by PayPal for 4 BILLION dollars?!?!? There has to be some real sketchy shit.

I see Paypal is the owner, I assume it'll be Enshittified on launch

I just assumed it was a scam the moment I saw it. Just thought it was farming data for profit out in the open because everyone else dose that. They went above and beyond and made corpo malware.

Was it not obvious that the extension was doing that and scraping your browser data?

Always wondered why YTers were complaining about lack of commissions and this explains most of it

I heard about this extension years ago. I wasn't always suspicious about it, but I still never used it. I can't say I'm surprised that it turned out to be a scam.

I'd rather pay full price honestly than support stuff like this.

Do people not immediately google "How does X make money" or is that just me?

It's kind of ridiculous how long it has taken for people to realise that this is happening... where did people think that their referrals had gone after they cratered?

as a consumer why should I care if I still get a discount ?

isn't this influencer back office bullshit and not my problem ?

Brian Dunning (Skeptoid podcast) went to prison for wire fraud for doing a similar stunt with EBay. Not sure what makes this any different.

I am fine with them scamming influencers. I am not fine with them being paid by websites to not give the best deals

I reckon if you're stupid enough to click a thumbnail like that, you're going to get scammed at some point anyway

I wonder what websites think of this toolbar stealing affiliate links from people doing all the work of promoting their prices. I wonder if Honey goes even further and turns vanilla purchases into affiliate purchases, actively stealing actual money from the site. If I were NewEgg or whoever else Honey has created affiliate links with, I think I'd be banning their affiliate account right now, or throwing in some captchas so their link theft doesn't work any more.

I just bought some local honey. Don't know what this shit is, hopefully I never will.

Google had that one browser extension that paid $1 per device type (phone, tablet, and computer, up to $3) per week. I signed up 5 accounts and had $10 every week for Starbucks, Amazon, and a few more but I only ever used it at those places. Especially Starbucks. I loved getting a free coffee and croissant every Friday and also getting points off those 🤣

However that time is over. Do not waste your time with money-making or saving extensions.

If you want extra money use UserTesting or Brandbee. Everything else is a waste of time.

Is Camelcamelcamel okay?

I knew that shit was up to no good. I never install anything like that. I assumed it would be sniping on me, I’m sure it does that too.

I knew this shit was too good to be true!!

Can someone ELI5? Does this mean they used refferal codes from people that had these "bring a friend" referal codes?

Technically isn't telling anybody anything "stealing"? You're transmitting a copy of the information and whoever created it gets nothing.

That's absurd

YSK the sky is blue

No way, big YouTubers are all scumbags? Who would have thunk?

I'm waiting for the installment to tell me about what personal Data they're scrapping, and then judge whether or not it negatively affects me. So far the first video in the series details how Honey is screwing creators out of affiliate commissions, which is interesting, but not something I give all that much of a shit about. The coupon stuff is more interesting, but it's not like I'm wading through the popup nightmare of coupon sites to scour the absolute best coupon for any given thing on any given day. Sometime if it's a high dig item i'll look around. The Honey plugin shows me the price history of any given item (on sites it works on) over a 6 month period of time, which informs me as to whether or not there are large downward dips on something I might end up waiting for a sale, which by looking at history, could be reoccuring regularly. Lot's of work went into this vid series, and I'm looking foward to the next one, but so far, nothing to get me to unistall Honey.