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

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

#21

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 t…

Yeah, somehow I doubt we'll ever see a follow up from MegaLag. Well except that he's probably getting sued into oblivion by Paypal for libel.

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

#22
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retailmenot.com

I want to like RetailMeNot but every time I try it, I very seldom come across functioning coupon codes. I don't understand what incentivizes people to submit bogus codes.

It feels like it has been ruined by greed and grift like RottenTomatoes and generally everything on the internet.

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

#23
post #2

What is the alternative? Is there an open source version that is community curated?

Syrup. https://github.com/Abdallah-Alwarawreh/Syrup

Looks like that's a frontend for https://discountdb.ch/ which is basically a https://www.retailmenot.com/ that nobody seems to use.

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

#24

A couple of YouTubers I watch promoted this and given what I assumed it did, I'm surprised that's all it does. If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

How did people think honey was making money?

I think a lot of these YouTubers are pretending to be shocked or caught out.

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

#26
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retailmenot.com

I want to like RetailMeNot but every time I try it, I very seldom come across functioning coupon codes. I don't understand what incentivizes people to submit bogus codes.

The codes are probably legit. There's just no incentive for anyone to clean up dead codes nor submit fresh ones except for the coupon providers themselves who might see retailmenot as a marketing angle, which seems to be very few.

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

#27

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 t…

I got a weird feeling from the MegaLag video, but overall don't think Honey are entirely in the clear either. From the AMA it seems Honey has been in the business of taking some/all affiliate revenue even in cases where it finds no coupons - sounds like the sites are fine/happy with this, but I'm sure people who post affiliate links are not.

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

#28
post #9
post #6

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.

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.
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