Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam
youtube.com
Was Honey a legitimate money saving tool? Or just an affiliate marketing scam promoted by some of YouTube's biggest influencers?If you have any inside inform...

🖕 Fuck PayPal

And fuck Linus Tech Tips for intentionally keeping quiet about this after they found out.

    • CaptPretentious@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      14 hours ago

      If only they had some medium to post the information, perhaps a medium that that VAST MAJORITY of their viewers use.

      “But the plans were on display…”

      “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

      “That’s the display department.”

      “With a flashlight.”

      “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

      “So had the stairs.”

      “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

      “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

      • JcbAzPx@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        10 hours ago

        They’re complaint was that honey inserted their affiliate cookie even when they didn’t find a coupon code for you. I doubt they knew the full extent of the scam.

        Plus, we don’t know what was in their contract with honey. They could still be subject to a non-disparagment clause.

    • poke@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      Some very vocal people on Lemmy just love hating on LTT. I don’t think this topic was worth them making a main channel video on, I think their forum post was good and I believe they even mentioned this functionality of Honey a few times on the WAN show. It wasn’t a secret, and anyone who cared to do in-depth research on a potential sponsor could have found out.

      • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        16 hours ago

        I don’t think this topic was worth them making a main channel video on

        Their viewers getting scammed by tech they promoted isn’t worth a video on their main channel? If they could legally do it I think they should have.

        Some very vocal people on Lemmy just love hating on LTT

        LTT have made mistakes but the dunking here does seem disproportionate.

      • sardaukar@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        1 day ago

        And yet here’s the scandal being exposed TWO YEARS LATER. Yeah, LTT couldn’t possibly have handled this better… /s

        • poke@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          1 day ago

          They told everyone and nobody cared, turns out people care if a YouTube video is made framing the same thing differently. Like yeah, Honey’s practice is bad for the creator industry, but is it bad enough to bring it back to the people who took their money? No, I don’t think so.I think this is more of an example of how easy it is to get the masses angry with a YouTube video than anything. It’s good that more people are going to move away from this information harvesting app, but I really feel like the reaction and hatred is overblown and, at least for the hatred towards creators, unwarranted.

          The way I see it, people still take money from predatory gambling sites, and if any creator deserves pushback, it’s them.

    • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      They didn’t hide it, but a huge portion of their audience doesn’t read the forums. A 10 minute video of Linus ranting about them would have opened this scandal to a wider audience years ago.

      • buddascrayon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 days ago

        There may have been non-disclosure agreements between Linus tech tips and PayPal Honey. They may have threatened to sue him if he went public. I’m assuming we’ll find out the details in the next few weeks.

      • Retro_unlimited@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 days ago

        Linus usually likes to rant about it on the WAN show then they usually make a clip for YouTube, but weird he didn’t do that for honey, maybe he didn’t know how far the scam went.

          • tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            16 hours ago

            non disparagement clause

            Not the level of a non-compete clause but that’s a scummy thing I hope is not legal.

        • zqps@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          0·
          2 days ago

          As creator that makes some of their profits from affiliate links, I don’t see how that could be the case for him.

          Seems more likely they had a reason to avoid beef with PayPal.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      2 days ago

      Yeah, that not nothing but it isn’t far off. They have a massive platform. It deserved at least a video telling people about it.