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Comment by staindk | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

> 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.

But the most important group - users- didn't know, and one they learned about the "never a secret" info, a large chunk of them left

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