Hacker News Reader

Comment by twostorytower | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Referral sniping is only a half of the scam. The other half is that Honey snipes the code even if they don't find a discount, and that companies pay Honey to prevent it from showing certain coupon codes. They pay for it because

1) thinking you got the best code when another one exists means they get ($best_discount - $honey_discount) more than they would had you actually searched

2) honey gives the false assurance that you are getting the best deal, making you more likely to complete the purchase

So Honey is both sniping referral codes and running a protection racket.

And straightforwardly lying to its users as well!

This is likely astroturf since they posted it twice, verbatim, in the same article [1], and it uses pretty standard PR deflections (e.g., "So are there some problems with the affiliate industry? Probably. But ...") without actually addressing the central claim.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42577711

I posted it twice because there’s multiple comments covering the same thing.

You can look at my post history. I’m just trying to give an industry perspective. I’m not supporting what Honey or any shopping extension does.

Afaik the scam is honey telling users they find the best coupon but also letting shops dictate what coupons honey shows to the user. If I remember it right, the video also shows honey replacing the attribution cookie with its own even if it did not find any coupon

I heard that vague snippet from the podcast in the video. From my time in the affiliate space (which was a few years ago), Honey would not let merchants delete a code unless it was an employee or internal code. If it was publicly available, they refused to delete a code without providing an equivalent exclusive code. Maybe that policy has changed? If so, that's definitely bad, but I have no way to confirm that and I don't see any proof.

But they are allowed to claim attribution even if they don't find a coupon. Merchants know this when partnering with Honey. Most of the time, even if users don't find a coupon, they still get cash back which is funded through the commission.

Like I said, the affiliate industry is pretty wack and that's why I left it, but this is far from a scam.

Clearly users didn’t know that all this was going on. And neither did the social media influencers who promoted honey while being robbed by it.

If it were an honest business, honey wouldn’t have needed to hide what they did. (And lie about it on their website - where they claimed until recently that honey found you the best deals). Also if it were an honest business, nobody would be surprised or mad when it all came out. Honest businesses can just explain everything and people still want to do business with them!

What honey did doesn’t pass the pub test. It’s scummy.

Its not. I have had honey installed on a separate chrome instance (mainly use FF). I was not aware that the extension pulled this, otherwise I would have never used it. There are some creators I follow, whose advice I somewhat trust and I have used their affiliate links to purchase a product. I want that creator to get the commission because they sold me on the product, not honey.

Also, just because something is standard industry practice, doesn't somehow make this behaviour any less egregious.

I already agreed the affiliate industry has issues (and is part of the reason I left). If they switched to first-click or multi-click attribution, none of this would be a problem.

But I am just saying it's not a Honey problem, the blame is focused on the wrong place. If they want things to change, they should direct their rage at the companies who make the rules.

Of course people should blame honey for deciding to act unethically. If you’re actively looking for ways to get away with being a scumbag, you’re a scumbag. Crime isn’t the fault of the police or the parliament. Crime happens because someone wakes up and decides to commit a crime. Honey is the same. It’s nobody else’s fault that honey exists. Honey exists because someone found a legal way to steal money. Then they decided to do it.

Any system of rules will always have loopholes. It’s the mark of civilisation that people choose to act honourably even - and especially - when they could get away with being a dirtbag.

I watched the video and I am pretty sure that the rage is warranted at this time. There is plenty of context given: Honey and their browser extension is swapping out cookies and lying about it to the end user - it does not matter if "everyone else is doing it as well". It's bad and it needs to stop.

They don't just swap out everyone's cookies. They comply their the affiliate network's "stand down" policies. Which means they don't actively try to poach commissions in the same shopping session. These are terms everyone agrees to, including creators. If it's the next day, most merchants don't pay out for referrals older than 24 hours anyways.

So like I said, there are some legitimate problems with the affiliate industry, but the rage should be directed at the affiliate networks that dictate the terms. They could easily switch to first click attribution which would solve this problem.

Did we watch the same video? Where one commission was fully wiped out by Honey vs it would have been paid out if Honey was not installed?

You can replicate his same case and see for yourself. Click an affiliate link and go to checkout. Honey won't pop-up like normal.

He doesn't provide the context for what his timescale is for his specific case. He cites that it can be up to 30 days later and Honey will still take the commission, which is true, but most merchants don't honor any cookies that are older than a day anyways.

I'm not saying this isn't a problem, it's just not a Honey-specific problem. If he actually wanted to influence change, he should cover the affiliate networks responsible for dictating this behavior (CJ, Impact, Rakuten, Awin, etc). The extensions are forced to comply by their rules.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com