> 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 income goes down by $2k/month, because all of those affiliate referrals are being stolen by Honey.

Also, Honey never disclosed that they were doing this.

So, of course, you can understand why the youtubers would have grievance. Pretty much nobody would ever agree to give up $2k/month of income forever to get $1k right now. (And it's probably not right now, it's probably more like 90 days when they settle their payables).