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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

#151

Post by luckylion »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #101
beAbU wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honey was replacing their affliate links with it's own. So these tech tubers were only really upset that Honey was stealing from /them/, they don't give a fuck about their viewers. Anyone who flogs ball shavers, ass wipes or fuckin microwave dinners don't give a shit about their viewers, and only care about their bottom lines and will shill whatever they can for the right price.

So this perspective boils down to "entrepreneurs are evil"? An interesting take to put on a site dedicated to funding entrepreneurs.

I'd read it more as "influencers are dishonest and pretend to not be sales professionals".

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

#152

Post by alwa »

ThalesX wrote: post #114
quickymonster wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstand the feature. Ground news tells you the bias of publications that have published the news item not the slant of the news item itself. It lets you see how much news gets completely ignored by the right and left (the right is way worse) when it isn't favorable to their cause. It's also really interesting to sample both sides and see how wildly the facts get slanted as you get further from cente…

I think I understand this feature pretty well. What I'm arguing for is taking the common information between all news sources (without having to place them in left / right / center) is much higher signal to noise. Honestly your paranthesis that "the right is way worse" is already too political for my taste. It makes me feel dumb for even writing this reply. Alas, these are my thoughts. News should be news. What happe…

Given that there are at least as many things happening as there are humans, how do you suggest the people serving as “news sources” avoid editorial judgment when deciding what’s newsworthy and what it means?

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

#153

Post by MikeKusold »

Dwedit wrote: post #30

What about the Capital One extension which was doing the exact same thing?

Eno? Up until recently, that was the only way to generate virtual cards. It's a useful feature for retailers that are too small for me to trust their security. I guess I'll need to start using their website now that it is an option.

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

#154

Post by unsui »

elamje wrote: post #71

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.

> Cool business

No it isn't. It's predatory (actually, parasitic) by its very nature.

I'm all for innovation, but that's just not cool.

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

#155

Post by twostorytower »

josephg wrote: post #40
staindk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, the video wasn’t perfect. But honey is clearly a shady business. Honourable businesses don’t need to trick their customers and advertisers about how their business works. Honourable businesses don’t make an enemy of the truth.

It was never a secret that shopping extensions monetized through affiliate. Merchants certainly know what they’re signing up for.

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

#156

Post by cogman10 »

asdf6969 wrote: post #150
johnnyanmac wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with VPNs? Seems like the tamest thing to sell in terms of ethical impact. any security middleman can be skewed negatively if you phrase it as "they get to peek at everything". That's what a security app needs to properly protect you, and why these apps live and die on credibility (see: Crowdstrike). Fortunately none of the youtubers I watched ever went full dark horse and pawned off gambling and scams,…

> What's wrong with VPNs? Nothing is inherently wrong but I trust my ISP a lot more than some random guys in Switzerland or Israel or whatever tax haven islands they operate from. They lie about what they’re good for which is just hiding things from my ISP. The rest of the benefits are fake

As you should.

Because a secret you should know about your ISPs is they really don't care (or want to care) about what you are doing with their service. They don't want to add the hardware/software it'd take to spy on your data, that's a huge cost to them with nothing but downsides.

I might distrust a large ISP more just because they have the extra cache to burn. But a smaller more regional ISP will not try and invade your privacy.

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

#158

Post by MisterSandman »

gruez wrote: post #100
zonkerdonker wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 stor…

I may be an idiot - wouldn’t it be cheaper to get rid of the 20% coupon code?

And if the retailer REALLY wants to keep the 20% discount for a particular use-case, make it a targeted discount for certain user accounts?

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

#159

Post by justinator »

Joel_Mckay wrote: post #108
elamje wrote: post #71

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.

Marketers monitor the conversion rates very closely. Chances are some people caught on to the shenanigans within 24 hours, but couldn't figure out which part of the lead generation ecosystem was cheating. What Honey did robbed content publishers of ad revenue, advertisers lead valuations, and end consumer confidence (bait-and-switch.) I wouldn't want to be in the blast radius of that legal mess... Popcorn ready for w…

It's very hard to figure out as in many instances the affiliate link part of a link is stripped out before clicked.

There's a browser extension for that too.

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

#160

Post by TheRealPomax »

kin wrote: post #148
dpbriggs wrote: post #84

Why do retailers put up with Honey? They're clearly not providing value with the attribution theft. Why give them money?

Retailers have budget to spend and have that spend deliver a return. It's just a simple return on investment. CJ, one of the biggest affiliate companies even encourages working with shopping extensions. https://junction.cj.com/cj-value-of-browser-extension-study-...

Except many companies came forward during the expose, explaining how honey loses them money, not makes them money.
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