[dmazzoni]

How do you propose a company like Honey should make a profit without deception and scams?

Their product is supposedly: install a FREE extension and you get discount codes applied for you at retailers when you check out.

It turns out they were able to be profitable by making themselves the affiliate every time you purchase something, but that's scammy because it's stealing from others who actually generated the referral.

But what other non-scammy business model could they have? There's basically no business model for what they're trying to offer that makes sense other than end-users paying for it.

[chowells]

I propose Honey should not make money. There is, in fact, no right to make money by doing whatever you want. Honey should lose massive amounts of money and be shut down. Theft is not a business model that needs to be protected.

[twostorytower]

Why do you assume they are always stealing a referral from somebody? Do you think everything people buy comes from a prior affiliate link? Yes, Honey makes money from affiliate commission. That money is funded by the merchants who voluntarily choose to partner with Honey. How is that scammy?

In the rare case there is a prior referral, yes last click attribution comes into play. But that's the same for every shopping extension (Rakuten, Capital One, etc). The extensions have to comply with the affiliate network's "stand down" policies, which means they can't just automatically pop-up and actively try to poach the commission if it's within the same shopping session. And they all comply. MegaLag focuses on a very niche case of going back to the merchant in the same month.

Source: I worked in the affiliate industry for a few years

[unclad5968]

> last click attribution comes into play

Thats an extremely generous way to say that they steal referrals from genuine affiliate partners.

[twostorytower]

I agree it's a problem. I believe the affiliate networks should switch to first-click or multi-click attribution. Problem solved.

[Arch485]

Are you on Honey's PR team now?

[twostorytower]

I don't know anyone over there anymore, just a few people back before they were acquired, from when I worked in the industry. I'm just trying to provide an industry perspective.

[tanduv]

If I understood MegaLag's video correctly, Honey was indeed overriding an affiliate session cookie with their own once the user the reached the checkout. The extension would silently open a tab in the background, which seems pretty scummy. I've observed the same background tab shenanigans with the Capital One extension as well.

[twostorytower]

They do this to not interrupt the purchase flow, not to be scummy. Opening a tab in the foreground or refreshing the page is extremely annoying to users and merchants request it to be in the background so it doesn't hurt their conversion.

I never said Honey doesn't override cookies. I'm not saying this isn't a problem, it's just not a Honey-specific problem. If the affiliate networks used first-click or multi-click attribution, none of this would be an issue.

[kelseydh]

Cookie stuffing to steal affiliate attribution is fraud. People have gone to prison for doing what Honey does: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdal/pr/cookie-stuffing-interne...

https://www.businessinsider.com/shawn-hogan-sentenced-in-eba...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_stuffing

[drawkward]

Stop justifying Honey's scumminess.

[asadotzler]

Yet another defense of these practices, it's almost as if you're not sincerely trying to put blame in the right place as you've said in other comments on this story but rather defending the whole evil industry like a shill.