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Comment by zten | Hacker News Reader

They do care. Some affiliate rates are far higher than that.

Affiliate comes out of retailer marketing budgets. They set the rates thinking they're paying for certain types of customers from certain participants. Honey is getting paid what the retailers think it's worth - they're skeptical, but it seems to be driving incremental conversion for especially price-sensitive shoppers.

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Coupons affiliates typically get a lower rev share than others. It may be cheaper for retailers to have them if they don’t care about pissing off their others affiliates (most are too small to get their voice heard)

But if the other affiliates are more valuable then merchants do care if they piss them off. After all they want those high value affiliates to continue doing what they are doing

90% of affiliates are very small players that don't have any bargaining power. In most modern platforms, all the referrers are tracked.

I'm pretty sure that big players do complain and they'll get a "first cookie" or at least partial attribution for the sales they make.

They have no individual bargaining power, but that doesn't mean they can be ignored. The more you ignore them the more go to greener pastures, the more you do for them the more resources they focus on your business.

In theory, yes. But that's not my personal experience (I'm mostly active in Europe).

I think we're in agreement. The numbers through Honey probably look good, and the other affiliates probably don't have a good handle on how frequently they're getting scooped by other affiliates.

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