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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

#251

Post by kin »

josephg wrote: post #221
twostorytower wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> It was never a secret Their business model was never explained clearly on their website. Now that how it works has become common knowledge, its absolutely wrecked honey's public perception. Merchants may have known what they were signing up for (if they signed up at all). But the general public had no idea.

Actually if you check wayback they've been telling us straight up since 2016 they make money off of commissions. https://web.archive.org/web/20180125135216/http://help.joinh...

Affiliate attribution wasn't explained in full but MegaLag with all his research still didn't accurately explain it since it's pretty complex. The user doesn't need to know this.

Doesn't make sense to explain all the nuts and bolts if it works the same way any other coupon website would.

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

#252

Post by ketau »

ysavir wrote: post #235
ketau wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryan here too - will try to respond to some of these with more info. The two biggest missing pieces from both my discussion and from the video are: 1) stand down rules for affiliate, and 2) cash back to the user. I was trying to address the claims he raised in the video specifically and since he didn't mention either I didn't in my reddit post except for a little bit in a couple of the answers. 1) For the case where…

> A valid question to ask is: if a user clicks a creator affiliate link AND has a cash back tool like Honey or Rakuten should they or should they not be eligible for cash back. Personally I think absolutely yes, the user's preference is the most important. But I've heard reasonable people argue the opposite. I'm not very familiar with Honey, it's business model, or the ins and outs of the affiliate program back stage…

Probably too complex to explain here but tldr; every cash back program is built on top of the affiliate marketing rails since Ebates started it in 1998. Same for coupon websites since those came along.

It is a system design flaw (that maybe will self correct because of this) that multiple advertising models at different points in the value chain are built on the same system. 'Multi-touch' or 'any-click' are the correct direction to solve this problem but introduce their own challenges for retailers which is why most of them have not adopted these systems yet.

You ask "what exactly is Honey doing here?"

Short answer is helping the retailer with conversion and limiting cart abandonment by making the user happy and more likely to transact.

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

#253

Post by pbreit »

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.

Dumb acquisition by PayPal. It should stick to "above board" financial services. Stuff like this erodes trust.

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

#254

Post by chihuahua »

eru wrote: post #215
EGreg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found Amazon Smile weird. Why not just donate, why have people jump through hoops just to prove that you should donate? So you look good but dont spend much money to do it due to user laziness. Ah… got it :)

Well, it's no less weird that store running a promotion saying 'If you buy item X today, we will donate one dollar of the proceeds to charity Y.' Also not more weird than the British charity thing of "I'm shaving off all my hair, and that's why you should donate to charity Y." (I suspect Brits need an excuse before they are mentally allowed to do something silly. But any excuse will do.)

I've always been baffled by the British charity thing: You want to ride your tricycle from John O'Groats to Ffestiniog? Fine, do it. You want me to donate to this charity? OK, maybe I'll do it. I just don't see the connection between the two. Please explain the connection to me. You don't actually want to ride your tricycle? But if I donate to some third party, you're going to do something you hate? So you're saying I want you to suffer? I'd rather donate if it doesn't cause unnecessary suffering.

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

#256

Post by gorgoiler »

maximus-decimus wrote: post #205
chatmasta wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when this was called cookie stuffing, and eBay even sent a guy to jail for doing it with their affiliate program. That’s the same eBay that owned PayPal, which now owns Honey…

Considering eBay also had management that harassed people by mailing them live spiders and dead pig fetuses... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ebay-pay-3-million-empl...

Aside, but NBC’s website is way better executed than I was expecting.

Perhaps it changed recently, or I just never noticed? I was expecting 100MB with back button abuse and retention dark patterns. Instead, it loads fast, has minimal guff, and the footer scrolled into view ending the page within sight of the end of the actual article.

Perhaps this is a reward response to not having to / be able to doom scroll?

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

#257

Post by [deleted] »

unsui wrote: post #154
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.

[deleted]

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

#258

Post by ChocolateGod »

kin wrote: post #246
dleary wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But wasn't Honey paying them? Yes, but Honey was also stealing from them. Most youtubers make a significant portion of their income via affiliate links. So, consider the following scenario. I made up these numbers, I don't know if these are accurate: Honey pays a youtuber $1k for a single ad spot. Due to that ad, many of the youtuber's audience installs the Honey extension. Afterwards, the youtuber's affiliate link…

YouTubers have no idea how much money they are losing due to last click attribution. They're mad that it could be a lot but in reality it is more likely very little. MegaLag posted a VPN example, which was an edge case, but it was enough to spark outrage. Ironically, there are many YouTubers who have only Amazon affiliate links which Honey never touches. Many YouTubers that Honey sponsored also didn't have conflictin…

> MegaLag posted a VPN example, which was an edge case, but it was enough

Ah, the modern day equivalent to snake oil, where you buy a product that gives your data to a random company in a tax haven over your publicly accountable ISP.

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

#259

Post by kalleboo »

beAbU wrote: post #48
ChocolateGod wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did people think honey was making money? I think a lot of these YouTubers are pretending to be shocked or caught out.

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 these tech tubers were only really upset that Honey was stealing from /them/, they don't give a fuck about their viewers.

Ironically, this is the reason LinusTechTips never did an expose video on this back when they originally learned about Honey doing this years ago - they thought "this only affects us, if we do a video on it the viewers will be like - who cares about your bottom line?"

And now on the contrary, LTT viewers are FURIOUS that they didn't expose it and flaming them in the comments of every tangentially related video...

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

#260

Post by kalleboo »

wingworks wrote: post #240
dleary wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But wasn't Honey paying them? Yes, but Honey was also stealing from them. Most youtubers make a significant portion of their income via affiliate links. So, consider the following scenario. I made up these numbers, I don't know if these are accurate: Honey pays a youtuber $1k for a single ad spot. Due to that ad, many of the youtuber's audience installs the Honey extension. Afterwards, the youtuber's affiliate link…

Damn Youtubers really make alot from affil links? I think I've only like once or twice used a link in the description. I usually don't bother, because nearly always the links in the description arn't relevant to the video. Just an ad link, and generic, my camera xyz links to some amazon page which usually out of stock/gone. I always thought Youtubers made the bulk of their money with brand deals (like Honey), and som…

LinusTechTips recently did a video on their revenue sources: 55% from merch, 21% from video sponsors, 12% from YouTube AdSense, 7% from their own video platform, and only 3% from affiliate links.

I guess for creators with a much smaller merch business, affiliate links would be twice as big a portion.

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