just so you know there were some guys who made videos explaining the whole scam 4 years ago, and megaLag didnt even acknowledge their existence Edit: two of them are, OriginalMCW and Affiliate Marketing MC
@SpaceForceCooks reply in a year's time but I completely doubt it. This is their business model. This is how they make MONEY. They won't change a little bit. Majority of users who have honey installed won't do anything
A lot of people have been promoting rocket money recently but that one is actually just a great service the rest are usually obviously bad like raid shadow legends
@@The-ZebraFinch-Channel how lazy are you?? i'm a lazy af bum, but even i want to save money when buying stuff, ESPECIALLY when it's so easy. i must know the level of laziness you possess. how did you aquire such power?? i swear if you're too lazy to respond...
@@StripofPaper It too rarely found coupons for me but neither did searching the internet on my own, so I just figured there were none for the site I was using. But I stay shopping on Bed, Bath and Beyond's website and they still haven't stopped with the 20% coupons (without needing a browser extension), so I get my discounts that way.
it literally affects only creators. who tf cares. don't expect it to give you every single coupon, use a second extension and apply both searches. simple. influencers yet again crying that they don't make 2 million instead of 1 million lol
The fact that no one of the "tech channels" that promoted honey could research about how they earned money (and the one who did didn't care about making it public) really speaks volumes about their credibility.
They even said that it was widely known among creators, that honey was poaching affiliate revenue, back when they dropped them as a sponsor. And that the affiliate revenue getting „redirected“ was not impacting end users, which is why they didn’t publish anything about it. But honestly, seeing all the surprise about this now, among creators and tech journalists, I do not believe ltt, when they say that „everyone“ knew back then. Also, I feel like if a piece of software takes away affiliate revenue from creators I as an end user want to support, I‘d say it does impact me as an end user. Personally, I feel like the way honey was implemented as an add on, replacing cookies by reopening the checkout page in a hidden tab, is borderline malware. The whole partnering with stores in order to prevent the customer getting the best discount feels like a „protection money“ mafia extortion scheme.
Fyi PayPal bought Honey for 4 BILLION dollars! That's an instant red flag for me because it doesn't make sense for a for-profit public company to spend that much money for a browser extension. The fact that PayPal executives and shareholders approved such a large acquisition means they saw something that we didn't. And now we know why...
@@saddammalima8458 It feels like the internet has forgotten. PayPal used to be roundly criticized all the time. It's not surprising at all for people who were around during the "PayPal Sucks" days.
well if you don't search or use coupons in general than Honey is still a net win at least for yourself. It still can give you a coupon just not the best one and the affiliate link thing is not really an issue for you as a consumer.
The biggest lesson from the Honey scandal is that almost all creators do zero due diligence into the products and companies they recommend. Don't trust any sponsored recommendations, especially those that are being sponsored everywhere. Edit: If we can't expect influencers to research the products or companies they recommend, regardless of whether it's because they're not technically savvy enough or if they just can't be bothered, then we shouldn't trust recommendations. The whole point of a recommendation is to get trustworthy information about the product/company. If we can't trust influencers to not ask basic questions when they see truckloads of cash being splashed everywhere with no discernible revenue source then we shouldn't trust their recommendations.
No, you should always think about what you do online and not just blindly trust everything just because someone recommends something. How should he have checked this?
@Eastcoastprince agreed. As a QA engineer working with web apps I am used to have dev tool opened in my browser 24/7 and watching the api calls and data being sent on websites (call it occupational fixation) so I would have spotted this had I used Honey. But many normal users don’t even verify web addresses (that’s why phishing is so effective) let alone even knowing about dev tools so yes it is difficult to spot especially if you don’t even know what to look for.
its pretty normal that they dont test the product to see what happens behind the scenes on a website, it takes way to much work and knowledge to find out what they were doing
Whilst I think creators should have done more due diligence in their defense Honey is owned by PayPal which is a pretty well known company and if it seems like most other creators are being sponsored by them you are going to assume they're legit. People don't do their due diligence on say Ford when they buy a car cus they assume if loads of people are driving them they must be fine. This is more a case of how spending power and assumption on innocence can obscure you from critically thinking about a (person or) companies motives/end goal than a case of TH-camrs being greedy when they saw the dollar on offer.
@@user-md6jf4pu7f they willingly put those good coupons out there, it’s hardly blackmail. Many browsers like Microsoft edge have integrated coupon suggestions anyway
I'm confused, If the retailer doesnt want the 20% coupon to be used why wouldn't they just remove it? whats the point of putting a coupon that you dont want anyone to use?
@@9al766I'm guessing they want to keep those coupons to incentivise specific groups (idk membership anniversary gift?) but honey is essentially threatening to tell everyone the secret offer
When I ran a store we would use them for things like getting first time customers to come and shop a second time (make a habit to shop with us) which is worth it because we would be likely to get many sales after that, or sometimes a discount for newsletter sign up because it's very valuable to use, but we would never publish codes very publicly. Sometimes we would discount the products themselves for stock control reasons.
Everyone now should just instinctively assume ALL in-video sponsorships across the entirety of TH-cam are scams. Skip the paid sponsor content and don't click any referral links. You're watching a YT video for an entirely different reason than buying shit, remember that.
I don't think that's true entirely. There are tons of people trying to actually promote something they really care about. I think the big red flag is when it's a product being advertised that has absolutely nothing to do with the channel's identity or even video's topic. The best ads are always ones that look promising and make sense for it to exist at the moment, not mass-produced ones. As always though with literally anything marketing, DOUBLE if not TRIPLE check all the facts and see if the product is ripping off another product or a scam like Honey.
Just a head up for folks that have also been inundated with TH-cam ads from the Pie extension: Pie was created by the founder of Honey so it's safe to assume they're using a similar business model and using their incessant ads to convince you to get the extension.
They're basically just doing the same they were doing with affiliate links, just with advertisements instead. So they show their own advertisements instead of the original ones, offering you 1/100th of the advertisement money they get while screwing over the sites that rely on advertisement to stay active (which is most sites on the internet).
@@pmHidden"while screwing over the websites".. isn't that what you're doing anyway? Using adblock, i mean. Using adblock takes the ad revenue from the website owners.
@@callumery119 -- there's a solution -- use an extension which speeds up ads. That means the ads still "play" and the revenue goes to the website owner, but the user is much less aggravated by the godawful ads. My favorite extension, which has worked perfectly on TH-cam, is "TH-cam Ad Accelerator & Easy Speed Drag"
@@callumery119 So be it. The internet isn't meant for handouts, if I can find a way to browse the internet without ads I will, and so will millions. If websites can find a way to make money legally at the expense of some customers, they will too. Boo hoo, websites make enough money.
i have personally used pie, they have this system where you CAN get sponsored ads for money. I never got any money from it. HOWEVER, it is good for blocking ads.
Honey even changed the affiliate-link to themselves when there were no coupons available. It would be a pop up "No coupons found" with an "OK" button. As soon as you pushed ok to get rid of the window, Honey changed the code to themselves.
not bad to be honest, there are worst scam for consumers this is just getting steal by discounts which is mostly just buy the same price, now is being time the creators get scammed not us and stop promoting with no backng info, now they are scared too as they should too when you promote nothing but just care about money
I'm not reporting anyone about anything. This is a TH-camr's problem, not mine. Like we all have to form a lynch mob for some sh*thead browser extension (that you should never have installed anyway, duhh) just because some rich TH-camr tells me we should. Get some self respect and work for yourself, not for some internet personality.
@@andrewgoodall2183 you obviously haven't watched the videos. This is not just about TH-camr affiliate links. It's the fact they make deals with companies to decide which coupons to show to the customers/end users, so they're never actually showing you the best deals. You could do a quick search and find a 10% off code, but if u use honey, they'd deliberately hide that code from you and instead apply the 2% coupon.
The consumers are still getting discounts and saving money tho, they exaggerated promotion with their "the best deal" but it's just marketing, puffery. Honey didn't directly "scam" any party, it's like suing a company for marketing the product as "the best gaming mouse" or "the best prices" webstores. As for the creator's affiliates it's also not a direct harm in a legal way, just like adblocking companies can't be proven guilty in doing damages to creators in court, can't imagine that happening...
@@boechtify1544 I have mixed feelings about this: I definitely think Linus Tech tips, who not only knew what was happening but also partnered with a different similar platform afterwards should be held accountable, and all creators should have done their due diligence. I think every creator who sponsored honey needs to publicly apologize and inform their audiences That being said, if you look at the creators who are the highest contributors, they’re some of the most influential and generally trustworthy creators on the internet, and there was almost zero information available before MegaLag’s excellent work, that marked honey as a scam. So I think we can afford to be a little less hard on the creators who were unaware, especially those without tech backgrounds, when trusted sources preceding them had already validated their choice to be sponsored by honey
Yea good/legit products usually don't need this much advertisement. When an ad for a product is being spammed for years on end you know it's a fishy deal.
@@AndrewWilson998 this reminds me of the Vincero lines of watches that many men in the self-improvement industry promoted. all they said that it's cheap for their luxurious appearances, but basically nothing about their quality. Based Zeus, How to Beast, alpha m., you name it. I was always skeptical about this line of watches myself.
A golden rule I have is that if I can't figure out how a company makes money then I don't use their product. Because in every scenario where the "product" is free. *You* are the product. You are their revenue. Edit: To the people comparing this to TH-cam. Can you not read? I said that if I can't figure out how a company makes money. We all know how TH-cam makes money. Adverts, subscriptions, TH-cam premium etc 🤦♂️ The problem with honey is that it's a free extension with no paid promotions or ads. How do they make money then? By scamming you.
I thought about it too, and I assumed that they got a commission from websites for sales due to increasing the chance a consumer would buy something with a discount. Turns out I was right, but in a much worse way.
A lot of people assumed they made money by stealing your data. (who buys what is super valuable info) They probably do that, but it turns out they do other things too.
This. Another golden rule for me is that a company needs to actually be good and have a product that sells itself if I were to use them. When a product needs to rely on billions of views and influencer/celebrity marketing over an actual good product that sells itself, that's a red flag.
@@debtanaymisra9707 sorry but this doesn’t make sense. Considering you are using TH-cam for free, you still have to watch their ads and that’s the product they’re selling. Either that or the premium subscription being the product so yeah, your comparison of Honey and TH-cam is invalid.
6:10 it’s not only a scam though. honey is a protection racket shakedown. “hey, it would be a shame if we recommended this coupon code to your consumers… give us 5% commission and it’ll all go away”
this is what i'm thinking as well. this isn't a scam to consumers...they're still getting discount codes that they wouldn't get otherwise...but it is certainly a shakedown to the brands that feel forced to give the commission. guess it hurts the consumer if a brand ends up raising a price just because of honey but that seems unlikely
@@markzheng It is a scam for users, because it says it'll find codes and it demonstrably doesn't do as well as a simple web search will do in many cases. Megalag literally recommended coupon codes to it which it ignored, because it had deals with the vendors to not show high-value codes.
@@markzheng Businesses will always pass down costs to consumers, and considering that the stores that worked with honey knew exactly how much they were loosing due to honey, it's fair to assume that products got a small bump in price to compensate.
Marques, with all due respect, even before the scam was known: you should not promote an extension that tracks ALL browsing from the user. This should be a hard no, always.
I want to agree with this. But it’s hard for a non-tech-savvy creator to know about principles like this: browser extensions have the potential power to modify all of your browser activity. Oh wait! This IS a tech-savvy creator. 🤦♂️ Do better Marques.
@ you wanna be very sure you trust that thing! I use one and I’m ruthless about it. Look at peer research. Find out if others have tested it and verified that it doesn’t do shady shit. If you’re going to use that thing and give it power over all of your browsing activity (essentially: your life) then you better be dam sure it’s not stabbing you in the back.
Dude, he doens't care, most youtubers don't care. If they get thrown literal bags of money to promote it, they're going to promote it. Him and Linus are two of the biggest tech focused TH-camrs, they knew better, they just didn't/don't care, this is all PR clean up.
I was annoyed when the colorblind community ignored the influencer lies the video presented and simply said "it works for some, it doesn't for others". And posts that defended and explained that video got down-voted. People who got sponsored react as if they got new eyes like that Logan dude. I've seen correct information get down-voted all the time. Crowd sourcing at its worst.
As a colorblind person I've always been skeptical of those glasses. Because you can't put a filter in front of an eye to make it see what it can't see. Like using a camera to see the infared light from a TV remote, That's not you seeing infrared light, it's just the camera shifting the light to the spectrum you CAN see. It used to be that when people learned I was colorblind they would ask "what color is my shirt" or "what color is that over there?", and I grew to dislike those questions, because your shirt looks normal. I can't tell you how I see because it's normal to me. I can't explain to you something I've never known. But now, the first question anyone asks me is "have you tried those glasses" and I hate that question SO much more because of the deceptive marketing they do.
Yeah, I’m strongly colorblind, and people are always asking about those glasses. I was so happy to see that video! I knew it couldn’t work because of basic science of how eyes see color, but I didn’t realize what a huge scam it was. I thought all the crying videos were just placebo, but it makes more sense that they were an ad scam.
@@TheKaves2 clearly they had too cause 😂😂, the original video explained that most of the creators was being scammed by honey and he even talked about his experience
yeah, Linus was super butthurt and defensive about being asked why they didnt talk more about dumping them as a sponsor. This is a W from Marques, and he needs one rn
Marques understands that his reputation is worth more than any future deals with shady sponsors. He is also in a position that he can pick and choose his sponsors.
Yeh. I think it's time TH-cam so-called "influencers" start getting honest about how much cash they accept for stuff like this. Probably a huge bag full of money. It's completely opaque.
@@WertyTT4 How naive can you be! These creators would have you believe they were stealing from them wouldn’t they. The reality is they were paid huge sums of money to promote Honey. Affiliate link revenue is pittance compared to sponsorship.
@@RZenith fun fact: people generally surround themselves with people similar to them in terms of hobby, politics, beliefs etc... fact you "do not know anyone" means exactly nothing.
Knowing so many online service that used to be partnered with Paypal all of the sudden just severed their partnership in recent memory make me want to say "I knew it!".
Awesome. I'm a lawyer myself and the second thing that came to my mind after learning this story was that there's about to be a massive class-action lawsuit against Honey.
@@WRXSEVEN And the problem PayPal is going to face is that it is going to be very easy to specify real monetary damages to their affiliates. This is not some kind of abstract potential advertising revenue loss, it's actual money they siphoned into their own pockets.
@@WRXSEVENthe one i heard about on the steve lehto chanel , was about a 13pg class action, but its only for 5million... thats way too low. But i guess enough creators haven't joined in, so idk.
LOL, he is set for life and almost nothing will stop that. He is a multimillionaire from youtube and he can hire a team of attorneys to fix anything if it arises. He just needs to do what is right and he will be fine in life which is why you see him making this video today.
I think everyone doesn't really understand, this doesn't just affect youtubers, it affects ALL affiliates of any product Honey is also an affiliate of. They have probably stolen a billion of affiliate publisher dollars in their run. So if Honey has an affiliate link to the site another affiliate sent you to, Honey will get paid the commission. It's pure evil.
Another way to put it... Honey has 17M users. Every time any of those users clicks the Honey button, if Honey is an affiliate of that seller, they will get paid the commission. That's very conservatively 17M dollars, assuming $1 commission per user
@@OTH89you missed the point, vendors are able to limit the coupons available on honey’s coupon database so that you don’t get a higher coupon to use. You aren’t getting the best deal
@@OTH89 You won't through Honey that's the point they aren't just stealing from creators they are making deals with businesses so you won't get the cheapest price possible. If there's a 20% off coupon and a 3% coupon Honey will only show you the 3% and take a payback from that company for lying to you.
Established Titles and Highland Titles, Honey, Betterhelp........not the first time and probably not the last. Creators should be more aware of who sponsors them BEFORE the fact. The damage is already done now.
A podcast I listen to, Painkiller Already, uses the phrase "If the money's there, we don't care". Probably applies to most, if not all, TH-camrs (and people).
@@jamescassar5348 Yeah it's terrible. and what's worse is they were exposed years ago and I guess people just forgot and then came back with a bunch of new Ads and people defended them.
I’m not seeing enough of this in the comments. MegaLags video on this is exceptional journalism and he deserves a lot of credit for his forensic level of investigation and communication to the public.
As someone who is in the cybersecurity space a little bit you think someone would have done at least a little bit of research into how it works years ago!
@@someone28I'm not surprised MegaLag was the one to bring this to light, but I wonder how many people contacted TH-camrs about this, surely not too many considering the amount of creators who have done Honey sponsorships?
Influencers when their viewers get scammed: *crickets* 🦗 Influencers when it hits their own pockets: 'Please uninstall!' The good old classic - It only matters when it affects me.
1:38 - I'm an English teacher and I love that this happened because you were looking for the word 'prolific' but 'proliferate' is also a related word but it's a verb whereas the first sentence needed an adjective which caused the slip up. This stuff fascinates me about humans lol
I didn't even know 'proliferate' was a word. This complicates things. Because I'm not going to remember it, but it's still going to taint my ability to find the right word in the moment. I had that happen today during an argument I was having, and the other person knew what I was trying to get at, and helped me find the word, and they even stumbled through some words to try to find it, and... yeah. Language, and language usage/the complexities of communication is interesting and fun.
I enjoyed this video, and maybe I'll get flamed for this, but I feel like Marques could at least say "Hey, I know I recommended this service, and I'm sorry if you installed it because of that."
I'll go a bit further. Same concerns about doing so. He doesn't care about us. This video is easy money, no research needed. Hopefully you uninstall Honey, so he can get, that affiliate money again. And he bets, rightfully according to most comments. That viewers see this video, as owning up to a mistake. Despite me and you, not really seeing that. Hence it can repair his recent reputation hit a bit.
@@soul0360 Exactly lol Why does he even need to do a video explaining what is already explained wonderfully in the original video? As you said; it's EZ money.
I was waiting for 10 minutes to hear “I’m sorry” for promoting scam, but somehow I didn’t hear it. Marcus, you took (what I’d estimate as) a considerable amount of money from Honey for those ads and your due diligence was “install the extension and buy a few products with it”? Not even trying to understand how their business model would work to be profitable? This is highly irresponsible. I hope this case will be a big lesson for you and other “influencers”. Dislike for the video, you don’t feel sorry, but you should.
I also wish he added an apology in there but to be fair he was probably one of the biggest victims here, the honey afiliation was prob a huge net loss for him
Modern day entitlement is wild. Is Marques your dad? If not, he has no obligation to protect you from stuff he wasn’t even aware of (nor literally hundreds of other creators so it’s not like this is some personal mistake from him)
@@sirebellum0 You promote something to your audience being fully aware they are going to try out the product. This is the whole reason they get paid because they already have a customer base. When you promote something without looking into it You expose them to the dangers of it as well. He’s not a victim. He is an unintentionally accomplice and should be held responsible.
@@mechomicsI’m pretty sure he was looking for prolific, he said “proliferating” and was describing how widespread the sponsorships were, or how prolific they were as a sponsor
You're only waking up now to paypal being a nefarious scam? They have been using these shady tactics for so many years that I stopped using them many, many years ago when they pulled a similar trick, I don't exactly remember what. I also told all my family to stop using them for the same reason.
I’m strongly considering distancing myself from PayPal. There are times I need it but there are instances (emergency fund savings account) that I could use a number of competitors.
@HistoryInClip I use direct payments and don't go through PayPal. I'm not sure about others but I always can find another way, thankfully PayPal hasn't monopolised payments where I live (Hungary).
Way, waaaaaaay better response than Linus to the whole problem, acknowledged it, showed how you made sure to not promote it further even on older videos, did not get defensive... you did great Marques! Looks like you learned a thing or two...
Bro why did he stop after 3 sponsored videos when himself said they were so easy to work with. I believe most of them (LTT, MKBHD) found out and told Honey and then Honey paid them to keep their mouths shut. Otherwise it makes no sense why have only 3 sponsored videos when you admit they paid well and were easy to work with. And MKHDB deleting my initial comment when I pointed that out just goes to confirm this.
What a low bar. He's a huge tech channel but can't work out some basic stuff? I can understand some of my makeup YTbers not being that techy, trying to give their followers real savings. This guy knew out of the gate this was a huge data harvesting operation/invasion of privacy (at a minimum) and did it anyway. I did. Never touched the thing, 'cos I have a modicum of tech knowledge.
Thank you for being honest and saying you were also duped by this and owning that. The fact that you went back and got rid of ads on a 4 year old tech videos is also nice and fresh to hear.
I believe Megalag said it was part one of three in a series. The scamming runs so deep it is sad. I removed as soon as I saw his video that day, I tried to spread it around since I have a lot of people who try to support small creators and honey has been taking from all of us. Honey never found me deals but I used it for other tools such as price watching but I always clicked those darn boxes which means every person I ever tried to support while using honey got nothing. I normally go out of my way to click random small creators links when I shop over a large creator .
@@qazhr true, but at the same time several people were suspicious from the start, I’m just surprised it took like 4 years for their suspicions to be confirmed
@@blackcloud5157 Go bring this loser energy over to Linus’s and Mr. Beast…those dudes have been scamming you for years and haven’t taken an ounce of accountability.
To be fair, it's not only creators that failed here. There are others that must have missed it. Browser companies, that allow such tactics in their extensions. SEC, TH-cam, and of course all the companies, that operate a referral program and have a deeper insight, into what happens to their cookies.
I don’t think I’ve ever used a TH-camrs affiliate codes. I’ve never once been tempted to use a service that TH-camrs promote. I always just skip through the advertising parts of videos.
an affiliate code isn't just from a sponsored segment. MKBHD may do a review of the Samsung s24 Ultra for example and put a link to purchase it in the desc of the video. Just by clicking that, the referral is saved to your browser for 30 days for example. It's not always ads
9:00 the funny part is all three parts of the "scam" we're done in the open. They said on their website, on the podcast as well as any one who asked they told them as if there was no issue.
@soltude But the MAJORITY need to HEAR and SEE the scam these influencers didn't bother to research ( just took the money) and pushed out to their viewers .
I can't believe Paypal weren't aware. They bought Honey for $4 billion. There would have been lawyers looking up and down and through the accounts and practices of Honey before they signed the purchase. This is blowing up on Honey, but their owners are just as culpable in my eyes.
Oh they were more than aware. How do you think they got the leverage to limit codes with retailers? Papa Paypal standing behind them with a baseball bat.
4:33 I've heard that those coupon codes that Honey finds can even include private codes meant exclusively for staff and/or family. That is, unless the store pays Honey the commission. This sounds like what Megalag referred to in the teaser at the end of his video, and I can't wait to see part 2 of this.
My respects for being one of the first (and few) to openly talk about this after the megalag video, you got scammed as well so there is no need to ignore the topic or try to find an excuse to use honey as a pattern. Great guy and great video as always
@@beebs4881 There are hundreds of videos talking about the scam, but there are few youtubers, OF THOSE WHO RECOMMENDED USING HONEY, who have spoken out about the scam. And Marques B is one of the biggest youtubers who recommended Honey, and still, he came out publicly to apologize and explain what happened, very very few youtubers have done so and even fewer big youtubers. READ BEFORE COMMENTING 🤦
I think the real lesson is to not trust influencer marketing. If even the biggest channels don't do enough due diligence to protect themselves from being scammed, how much due diligence are they going to do to keep their audience from being scammed when they can profit from the scam?
@@collinsonOga bro its a affiliate cookie. literally anyone can right-click inspect and see the webpage and how it works. Noone bothered to look how it worked. thats the point. Honey offered 50K/mo times 3 months for MKBHD to run ads - it was a legit enough company - DONE. No influencer really cares about the audience more than as far as it helps the bottom line of the business. This doesn't make them evil it makes them a business. Look videos and influencers are just advertisers. Watch the videos learn what you need to but watch more than 1 or 2 for a product. Then reddit them, then look at reviews THEN buy. Don't listen to Marquez about a speaker bar - take it as gospel and buy it.
This is essentially a regurgitation and curation of the original video. I encourage everyone to watch the original as well. It’s amazing investigative journalism. I’d also love to see creators scammed like this dig into their work with honey and estimate just how much Honey took from their affiliate links. Has to be a way to ballpark it.
Would not shock me if we get a peek on that from LTT. But first the response, a offical, take action response. which is probably started and probably being discussed right now.
@@ailhad Bro he's directly crediting him in this video, and this is just clearly to inform people ... I don't know this content creator btw and only saw the original video then was recommended this where I was curious to watch what a "victim" about it would say Yeah he was not adding anything nor getting mad on them or something but still he was doing a good job summing up the video
@@dylankelner2856 punctuation specifics differ from language to language. No need for spaces in English, but it's not universal, so more a sign of an English as a second language user.
Don't believe youtubers saying it's possible to win a case like this. What exact party is harmed here and how are they gonna prove damages in the court? The consumers are getting discounts and saving money, they exaggerated promotion with their "the best deal" but it's just marketing, puffery. Honey didn't directly "scam" any party, it's like suing a company for marketing the product as "the best gaming mouse" or "the best prices" webstores. As for the creator's affiliates it's also not a direct harm in a legal way, just like adblocking companies can't be proven to do damages to creators in court, can't imagine that happening.
It's going to be insanely difficult, if not impossible, to get a full record of damages and lost income across the board. Going to be very interesting to watch how this plays out from here.
I’m skeptical as hell about class action lawsuits (especially with the new business-friendly / anti-consumer presidency coming in), but we don’t know unless we try. That’s what most american lawsuits are: swinging wildly and hoping for a hit
For the users, yes. For the content creators that leveraged affiliate links there are measurable losses. None of the creators seem to be talking about their legal pursuits though... This was straight up fraud and the directors of Honey should be personally liable for knowingly defrauding people.
@@BlueSheep777 Well maybe "inject" was a bit too strong of a word, but still, the moment you use a website hosting coupon codes, and click on one to reveal it, the website then reffers you to the store, using their aff link, and then reveal the coupon code. Usually the tab you were on gets redirected, while a new tab gets opened with the coupon code. It might not be as sneaky as what the extensions are doing with the small tab being opened then closed, but still. The copuon code websites and extension bussiness model makes no sense, until they make the user unknowingly use their aff link.
Thank you Marques for discussing this and being so open to the Honey scandal. It’s not an easy thing to speak about something you endorsed (even as a paid sponsorship, because you have to agree to take said sponsorship) and admit something wasn’t right and you’re stepping it back.
Why? Why should you uninstall a product that potentially saves you, the user, some money, because some rich TH-camr isn't making any money out of it? I wouldn't install Honey anyway, but that's about what's bound to be software that has privacy concerns with my browser history.
@@andrewgoodall2183because it’s not saving you money in most cases. Companies pay Honey to NOT show you applicable discount codes, and they are probably increasing the price to compensate.
No honey is also not giving you the best coupon. The shop can decide what coupons are shown to you if they partnerd with honey. And you would have more percent off if you would have just googled a coupon. Honey was bought for 3 billion dollers by PayPal. Don't you think Paypal has enough money? If you don't want support a rich youtuber, why do you want to support and give money to a billion dollar company? @@andrewgoodall2183
There's an earning section for TH-camrs: Distribution of earning. Which explains how much money they got from Ads and from TH-cam premium users as well. They pay a tiny percentage of premium to the creators. Or at least they used when I was working on my channel as well back until 2022.
8:45 Haven't watched the whole video, have you? He actually admits that they didn't do their due diligence properly and need to be more vigilant in the future.
@@Beardsandbars Oh nono, not from my part at least. It's sad that he's the victim of the Honey scam and I hope he gets justice on the class action lawsuit... Only that Marques is a corpo shill, and they only _research_ that he does is the one that benefits his "sponsor of the day"...
I swear if Megalog doesn't get any subscribers, I would be immensely disappointed. But I hope more and more TH-camrs come out with this so that honey goes down. I wonder if they'll come out with a statement or simply disappear like every other company that does this.
I'm glad that other channels have been pushing this video so much, first Charlie, now Marques. Hopefully this becomes a turning point in the online creator market.
The fact that huge content creators didn't sue them and make that public I think makes it clear that the contract they signed had a gray area were Honey could pull off that stunt.
Honey is not the only company or the last company doing this. It is just the largest one right now. Expect to see a lot of copycats claiming to be not-a-honey-scam and finding you really sick coupons in the first few uses. Once you trust them, they'll be the new honeys.
I really appreciate that you made this video. As far as I know you are the first of the major YT creators who reacted this way to MegaLag's video. Chapeau!
Good for you for putting a video out about this and removing your sponsor segments, but I think a little more taking of responsibility and apology is deserved
Nah he and other creators is as mucha victim as consumers, if not more so. They were lured in by an easy to work with sponsor that seemed on the surface to be great fro their viewers too, and took actually quite a lot of digging to realise it was a scam.
An apology for you getting customer deals without them having to search for codes themselves? There's two major impacts here: 1. On the creator - they are likely mad they have been cheated and as such they are publishing hit pieces on honey 2. On the customer - the customer learns that they may not be getting the best deals for SOME businesses due to agreements between honey and the business. The customer could go back to searching for coupons but will they? Likely not. Even if you get 5% off instead of 10% off that's better than 0% off you were going to get without a code. A bigger issue would be the data mining they are doing being connected to your browser and seeing everywhere you go. What Marques listed is just him (and other creators) being sour their sales were stolen.
@@Jrfusion08Consumers are often clicking affiliate codes do so under the belief they’re benefiting their creator. The money going straight to PayPal instead, under the hood, is fraudulent to the consumer.
@@andreas-panay I can see how it might have been hard to tell at the time, and I don't blame these creators too much, but you still hurt people because you didn't do enough research and see the red flags. At least say something like "I've learned from this and I promise I will do as much research as I can text time" this video reads like "this sucks but there was nothing I would've done differently"
1:25 Just so y’all know: Honey had 20M users before the Megalag story broke out.
Damn so 3 million and counting deleted it.
It’s about to go down again I bet
Starting the new year with a controversy, great start
just so you know there were some guys who made videos explaining the whole scam 4 years ago, and megaLag didnt even acknowledge their existence
Edit: two of them are, OriginalMCW and Affiliate Marketing MC
@itsjustme4026 it'd be cool if u directed the reader to this supposed video.
Honey has never found me a deal, not once. Glad to see them going under.
They're not dead yet
i uninstalled after a few months of it doing nothing it claimed
It's a pretty safe bet they'll change their process
I used it and it didn’t work so I uninstalled it. Might try to delete my account now but that’s about it
@SpaceForceCooks reply in a year's time but I completely doubt it. This is their business model. This is how they make MONEY. They won't change a little bit. Majority of users who have honey installed won't do anything
Any product that has massive "influencer" marketing push is an instant *RED FLAG* for me
Like ridge wallets 😂
that would be almost every product you see then 😂
@@13ON3Sridge wallets are a scam simply because they're so expensive
Funny cuz you are the scammer here
A lot of people have been promoting rocket money recently but that one is actually just a great service the rest are usually obviously bad like raid shadow legends
Megalag has the best explanation of a scam video in TH-cam history.
Yes
Because it has receipts about every claims made, so there is no room for deniability
The only flaw was that he said nobody spoke about it online when a few guys spoke up about this scam 5 years ago. Other than that the video is perfect
@@rafsangd6810 list them up here or it didn't happen
I agree.. Marques made a fortune off of Honey and now smoking more money on a video off of MegaLag😅
It’s funny how they named it after a honey trap. One of the most common ways to compromise somebody and get what you want from them.
Good thing I was too lazy to install it 😊
It's funny, I used it for a few days and it never found coupons for things I wanted to buy
Figured it was a scam and uninstalled then and there 😂
Honey Pot...
@@The-ZebraFinch-Channel how lazy are you?? i'm a lazy af bum, but even i want to save money when buying stuff, ESPECIALLY when it's so easy. i must know the level of laziness you possess. how did you aquire such power??
i swear if you're too lazy to respond...
@@StripofPaper It too rarely found coupons for me but neither did searching the internet on my own, so I just figured there were none for the site I was using. But I stay shopping on Bed, Bath and Beyond's website and they still haven't stopped with the 20% coupons (without needing a browser extension), so I get my discounts that way.
The fact Markiplier predicted this scam like 5 years ago is wild
@DontReadMyPicture443 too late.....now what?
@@HeisenbergFam fr and another thing to Honey Played all the big tech channels
What's wild is the profit generated over 5 years! Worth the investment!
He didn’t predict it he just said he had an off feeling about it
I mean it was incredibly obviously fishy from the start.
"They called me a madman"
~ Markiplier
😂😂
Little did we know
it literally affects only creators. who tf cares. don't expect it to give you every single coupon, use a second extension and apply both searches. simple. influencers yet again crying that they don't make 2 million instead of 1 million lol
never used honey because I had the same logic as him, I couldn't figure out how they were making money, the whole thing made no sense
now we know ....
@ naw dawg it also steals our data
The fact that no one of the "tech channels" that promoted honey could research about how they earned money (and the one who did didn't care about making it public) really speaks volumes about their credibility.
Mhmm. For me this is the bigger story. How they could get away with it for years across thousands of videos and creators and apparently nobody knew.
These tech channels seem to put profits over due diligence. We are just the sheep for them. Well, they just found out they are sheep too.
Money is money
LTT did know... and they didn't say anything
They even said that it was widely known among creators, that honey was poaching affiliate revenue, back when they dropped them as a sponsor. And that the affiliate revenue getting „redirected“ was not impacting end users, which is why they didn’t publish anything about it.
But honestly, seeing all the surprise about this now, among creators and tech journalists, I do not believe ltt, when they say that „everyone“ knew back then. Also, I feel like if a piece of software takes away affiliate revenue from creators I as an end user want to support, I‘d say it does impact me as an end user.
Personally, I feel like the way honey was implemented as an add on, replacing cookies by reopening the checkout page in a hidden tab, is borderline malware. The whole partnering with stores in order to prevent the customer getting the best discount feels like a „protection money“ mafia extortion scheme.
...if the product is free, then you're the product...
*you’re EXPECTED to be the product, you don’t necessarily have to be, COD Warzone is free because they expect me to buy the battle pass, but I don’t
nothing is more expensive than free products
Unless it’s open source :)
what about water fountains
@@yonkocommander5531Even then, you are still the product. You fill up the servers and keep the paying players online by filling their matches.
Fyi PayPal bought Honey for 4 BILLION dollars! That's an instant red flag for me because it doesn't make sense for a for-profit public company to spend that much money for a browser extension. The fact that PayPal executives and shareholders approved such a large acquisition means they saw something that we didn't. And now we know why...
Exactly why is no one pointing fingers to PayPal? They would definitely know what their subsidiary is doing no?
Paypal is the biggest thief under a legal business name .
Crooked PayPal buying crooked companies
@@Explore_MontrealWhy is that?
@@saddammalima8458 It feels like the internet has forgotten. PayPal used to be roundly criticized all the time. It's not surprising at all for people who were around during the "PayPal Sucks" days.
I'm actually proud of myself that I was so lazy to add honey to my browser
Same. A lifetime of being advertised to makes me numb to ads, even things I may want.
well if you don't search or use coupons in general than Honey is still a net win at least for yourself. It still can give you a coupon just not the best one and the affiliate link thing is not really an issue for you as a consumer.
i added it then deleted a week later
Same for me. Or more so that I tend to like my browser being nice and tidy without any extraneous pop ups thank you very much.
I am a simple man. I literally add nothing other than ublock.
“Time to get super selective about sponsors” > Sorry, when wasn’t the time to be selective?!
When no one catches you being unethical 😂
He doesn’t even review or think of what he’s saying lol
Keyword is “super”. Meaning selective was the default. Your pitchfork must be gathering dust so you’re getting desperate.
@ we can change the question to when wasn’t the time to be “super selective” as well. Cheers! :)
@@sirebellum0when u have 20m subs u should be super selective as well
The biggest lesson from the Honey scandal is that almost all creators do zero due diligence into the products and companies they recommend. Don't trust any sponsored recommendations, especially those that are being sponsored everywhere.
Edit: If we can't expect influencers to research the products or companies they recommend, regardless of whether it's because they're not technically savvy enough or if they just can't be bothered, then we shouldn't trust recommendations. The whole point of a recommendation is to get trustworthy information about the product/company. If we can't trust influencers to not ask basic questions when they see truckloads of cash being splashed everywhere with no discernible revenue source then we shouldn't trust their recommendations.
so true
No, you should always think about what you do online and not just blindly trust everything just because someone recommends something. How should he have checked this?
Remember “Established titles”?
Easier said than done. It took years to discover Honey's scam.
@Eastcoastprince agreed. As a QA engineer working with web apps I am used to have dev tool opened in my browser 24/7 and watching the api calls and data being sent on websites (call it occupational fixation) so I would have spotted this had I used Honey. But many normal users don’t even verify web addresses (that’s why phishing is so effective) let alone even knowing about dev tools so yes it is difficult to spot especially if you don’t even know what to look for.
Moral of this story: creators don't really check what they promote if the bag is big enough
its pretty normal that they dont test the product to see what happens behind the scenes on a website, it takes way to much work and knowledge to find out what they were doing
Linus Tech Tips did check, but they just stayed quiet, not that they have an obligation to help others but bro could of let us know
Whilst I think creators should have done more due diligence in their defense Honey is owned by PayPal which is a pretty well known company and if it seems like most other creators are being sponsored by them you are going to assume they're legit. People don't do their due diligence on say Ford when they buy a car cus they assume if loads of people are driving them they must be fine.
This is more a case of how spending power and assumption on innocence can obscure you from critically thinking about a (person or) companies motives/end goal than a case of TH-camrs being greedy when they saw the dollar on offer.
Well in this case they basically paid themeselves to do the promotion using theier lost affiliate earnings + more on top of that lol.
yup
It's a modern version of the mafia protection racket. "Give us a cut or we'll provide all of our users your best coupon codes."
Correct, I won't call it a scam but a blackmail, digital or not
@@user-md6jf4pu7f they willingly put those good coupons out there, it’s hardly blackmail. Many browsers like Microsoft edge have integrated coupon suggestions anyway
I'm confused, If the retailer doesnt want the 20% coupon to be used why wouldn't they just remove it? whats the point of putting a coupon that you dont want anyone to use?
@@9al766I'm guessing they want to keep those coupons to incentivise specific groups (idk membership anniversary gift?) but honey is essentially threatening to tell everyone the secret offer
When I ran a store we would use them for things like getting first time customers to come and shop a second time (make a habit to shop with us) which is worth it because we would be likely to get many sales after that, or sometimes a discount for newsletter sign up because it's very valuable to use, but we would never publish codes very publicly. Sometimes we would discount the products themselves for stock control reasons.
Everyone now should just instinctively assume ALL in-video sponsorships across the entirety of TH-cam are scams. Skip the paid sponsor content and don't click any referral links. You're watching a YT video for an entirely different reason than buying shit, remember that.
I don't think that's true entirely. There are tons of people trying to actually promote something they really care about. I think the big red flag is when it's a product being advertised that has absolutely nothing to do with the channel's identity or even video's topic. The best ads are always ones that look promising and make sense for it to exist at the moment, not mass-produced ones.
As always though with literally anything marketing, DOUBLE if not TRIPLE check all the facts and see if the product is ripping off another product or a scam like Honey.
Arr you sponsored? @@BVSSIC
Just a head up for folks that have also been inundated with TH-cam ads from the Pie extension: Pie was created by the founder of Honey so it's safe to assume they're using a similar business model and using their incessant ads to convince you to get the extension.
They're basically just doing the same they were doing with affiliate links, just with advertisements instead. So they show their own advertisements instead of the original ones, offering you 1/100th of the advertisement money they get while screwing over the sites that rely on advertisement to stay active (which is most sites on the internet).
@@pmHidden"while screwing over the websites".. isn't that what you're doing anyway? Using adblock, i mean. Using adblock takes the ad revenue from the website owners.
@@callumery119 -- there's a solution -- use an extension which speeds up ads. That means the ads still "play" and the revenue goes to the website owner, but the user is much less aggravated by the godawful ads. My favorite extension, which has worked perfectly on TH-cam, is "TH-cam Ad Accelerator & Easy Speed Drag"
@@callumery119 So be it. The internet isn't meant for handouts, if I can find a way to browse the internet without ads I will, and so will millions. If websites can find a way to make money legally at the expense of some customers, they will too. Boo hoo, websites make enough money.
i have personally used pie, they have this system where you CAN get sponsored ads for money. I never got any money from it. HOWEVER, it is good for blocking ads.
Honey even changed the affiliate-link to themselves when there were no coupons available. It would be a pop up "No coupons found" with an "OK" button. As soon as you pushed ok to get rid of the window, Honey changed the code to themselves.
I thought it couldn't get any worse until that was revealed too lol
not bad to be honest, there are worst scam for consumers this is just getting steal by discounts which is mostly just buy the same price, now is being time the creators get scammed not us and stop promoting with no backng info, now they are scared too as they should too when you promote nothing but just care about money
crazy it took so long for anyone to even check what it did lol
Dang
@@EricV206 it's super bad ^^
Report “Honey” to the FTC and Consumer Protection Bureau. It would be a step towards deterring this kind of behavior.
Cry about it
I'm not reporting anyone about anything. This is a TH-camr's problem, not mine. Like we all have to form a lynch mob for some sh*thead browser extension (that you should never have installed anyway, duhh) just because some rich TH-camr tells me we should. Get some self respect and work for yourself, not for some internet personality.
@@andrewgoodall2183 all that yap just to prove absolutely nothing, just say you don't care and move on.
@@andrewgoodall2183 you obviously haven't watched the videos. This is not just about TH-camr affiliate links. It's the fact they make deals with companies to decide which coupons to show to the customers/end users, so they're never actually showing you the best deals. You could do a quick search and find a 10% off code, but if u use honey, they'd deliberately hide that code from you and instead apply the 2% coupon.
The consumers are still getting discounts and saving money tho, they exaggerated promotion with their "the best deal" but it's just marketing, puffery. Honey didn't directly "scam" any party, it's like suing a company for marketing the product as "the best gaming mouse" or "the best prices" webstores.
As for the creator's affiliates it's also not a direct harm in a legal way, just like adblocking companies can't be proven guilty in doing damages to creators in court, can't imagine that happening...
Idk man you looked kinda happy when you promoted it 🗿
$$$$$ money talks
Because he didn't know it was a scam back then. Duh. Are we watching the same video?
He probably assumed it's legit?
Monneyyy. It's all about money. Who cares if its a possible scam. They were asked to promote it and they did
He prolly was blind folded by the cash
10:00 this should be said every time this comes up. Instead of just “honey” it should be called “PayPal’s honey.”
especially since the Honey Rewards are now PayPal Rewards
Paypal's Honey supported by MKBHD, Linus and hundreds of others who are now trying to divert attention from their own involvement and guilt.
EXACTLY - Honey = PayPal, who seem to value a quick scammy $ more than their companys reputation. There should, and there will be consequences
Yes, PayPal is the one to remember here. They clearly promoted the brand and liked it in the PayPal portfolio!
@@boechtify1544 I have mixed feelings about this: I definitely think Linus Tech tips, who not only knew what was happening but also partnered with a different similar platform afterwards should be held accountable, and all creators should have done their due diligence. I think every creator who sponsored honey needs to publicly apologize and inform their audiences
That being said, if you look at the creators who are the highest contributors, they’re some of the most influential and generally trustworthy creators on the internet, and there was almost zero information available before MegaLag’s excellent work, that marked honey as a scam. So I think we can afford to be a little less hard on the creators who were unaware, especially those without tech backgrounds, when trusted sources preceding them had already validated their choice to be sponsored by honey
A rule of thumb I follow - if a product is heavily promoted by content creators, I stay away - Honey, Better Help, Vessi Shoes, Raycons etc.
Yea good/legit products usually don't need this much advertisement. When an ad for a product is being spammed for years on end you know it's a fishy deal.
Same here, if they are being advertised on TH-cam and podcasts something is up sadly.
@@AndrewWilson998 this reminds me of the Vincero lines of watches that many men in the self-improvement industry promoted. all they said that it's cheap for their luxurious appearances, but basically nothing about their quality. Based Zeus, How to Beast, alpha m., you name it. I was always skeptical about this line of watches myself.
What‘s bad about Raycons?
@@Tamay. Pulls up Chair..
A golden rule I have is that if I can't figure out how a company makes money then I don't use their product. Because in every scenario where the "product" is free. *You* are the product. You are their revenue.
Edit: To the people comparing this to TH-cam. Can you not read? I said that if I can't figure out how a company makes money. We all know how TH-cam makes money. Adverts, subscriptions, TH-cam premium etc 🤦♂️
The problem with honey is that it's a free extension with no paid promotions or ads. How do they make money then? By scamming you.
I thought about it too, and I assumed that they got a commission from websites for sales due to increasing the chance a consumer would buy something with a discount. Turns out I was right, but in a much worse way.
stop using youtube
A lot of people assumed they made money by stealing your data. (who buys what is super valuable info)
They probably do that, but it turns out they do other things too.
This. Another golden rule for me is that a company needs to actually be good and have a product that sells itself if I were to use them. When a product needs to rely on billions of views and influencer/celebrity marketing over an actual good product that sells itself, that's a red flag.
@@debtanaymisra9707 sorry but this doesn’t make sense. Considering you are using TH-cam for free, you still have to watch their ads and that’s the product they’re selling. Either that or the premium subscription being the product so yeah, your comparison of Honey and TH-cam is invalid.
He didn’t even actually apologize that’s crazy 😂
We all got scammed bro..
He said go super selective
6:10 it’s not only a scam though. honey is a protection racket shakedown. “hey, it would be a shame if we recommended this coupon code to your consumers… give us 5% commission and it’ll all go away”
this is what i'm thinking as well. this isn't a scam to consumers...they're still getting discount codes that they wouldn't get otherwise...but it is certainly a shakedown to the brands that feel forced to give the commission. guess it hurts the consumer if a brand ends up raising a price just because of honey but that seems unlikely
@@markzhengIt also hurts the customer when they don't show a better coupon code that can be found via a Google search.
@@markzheng It is a scam for users, because it says it'll find codes and it demonstrably doesn't do as well as a simple web search will do in many cases. Megalag literally recommended coupon codes to it which it ignored, because it had deals with the vendors to not show high-value codes.
it's basially a scam to creators
@@markzheng Businesses will always pass down costs to consumers, and considering that the stores that worked with honey knew exactly how much they were loosing due to honey, it's fair to assume that products got a small bump in price to compensate.
Marques, with all due respect, even before the scam was known: you should not promote an extension that tracks ALL browsing from the user. This should be a hard no, always.
I want to agree with this. But it’s hard for a non-tech-savvy creator to know about principles like this: browser extensions have the potential power to modify all of your browser activity.
Oh wait! This IS a tech-savvy creator. 🤦♂️
Do better Marques.
what about a password manager like 1password or bitwarden?
Money talks. These “creators” will blindly take money and sellout there audience. Not the first time and won’t be the last.
@ you wanna be very sure you trust that thing! I use one and I’m ruthless about it. Look at peer research. Find out if others have tested it and verified that it doesn’t do shady shit. If you’re going to use that thing and give it power over all of your browsing activity (essentially: your life) then you better be dam sure it’s not stabbing you in the back.
Dude, he doens't care, most youtubers don't care. If they get thrown literal bags of money to promote it, they're going to promote it.
Him and Linus are two of the biggest tech focused TH-camrs, they knew better, they just didn't/don't care, this is all PR clean up.
Megalag is such a great channel, he did an awesome two part series about the chroma glasses, those glasses that let colorblind people “see color”
I loved his air tag into North Korea series
I was annoyed when the colorblind community ignored the influencer lies the video presented and simply said "it works for some, it doesn't for others". And posts that defended and explained that video got down-voted.
People who got sponsored react as if they got new eyes like that Logan dude.
I've seen correct information get down-voted all the time. Crowd sourcing at its worst.
omg I didnt know that was the same guy.
As a colorblind person I've always been skeptical of those glasses. Because you can't put a filter in front of an eye to make it see what it can't see. Like using a camera to see the infared light from a TV remote, That's not you seeing infrared light, it's just the camera shifting the light to the spectrum you CAN see. It used to be that when people learned I was colorblind they would ask "what color is my shirt" or "what color is that over there?", and I grew to dislike those questions, because your shirt looks normal. I can't tell you how I see because it's normal to me. I can't explain to you something I've never known. But now, the first question anyone asks me is "have you tried those glasses" and I hate that question SO much more because of the deceptive marketing they do.
Yeah, I’m strongly colorblind, and people are always asking about those glasses. I was so happy to see that video! I knew it couldn’t work because of basic science of how eyes see color, but I didn’t realize what a huge scam it was. I thought all the crying videos were just placebo, but it makes more sense that they were an ad scam.
You got called out and you are trying to save yourself lol
Facts😂
Honey was scamming consumers too with faking info on best coupons. You missed that part?
@@TheKaves2 clearly they had too cause 😂😂, the original video explained that most of the creators was being scammed by honey and he even talked about his experience
Honey tricked and scammed hundreds of creators he didnt know it was a scam
Thank you, Marques for cutting out the ad from your previous videos! Not everyone would/could have done that
Marcus only out here liking the comments that either praise him or agree with him is wild
@@Muaddib1776bro if u were him would u like a bash comment for u?
@@Muaddib1776 hahah 😂
yeah esp since they're phone reviews so people will still actively look for them
Everyone will do that - Honey is stealing their income
I’m surprised Marques made a video on this. Everyone was theorizing the big YTers wouldn’t so as to not cause alarm to future sponsors.
yeah, Linus was super butthurt and defensive about being asked why they didnt talk more about dumping them as a sponsor. This is a W from Marques, and he needs one rn
he is probably just trying to clear his name and is riding this wave of hate, because previously people were hating on him.
@@vvvictoriav5958 We’ll see if the hypocrites that have been plaguing the comments here can keep the same energy for LTG.
Marques understands that his reputation is worth more than any future deals with shady sponsors. He is also in a position that he can pick and choose his sponsors.
@@vvvictoriav5958I disagree. People are holding him to a different standard for no reason.
This video reeks of "damage control".
Yeh. I think it's time TH-cam so-called "influencers" start getting honest about how much cash they accept for stuff like this. Probably a huge bag full of money. It's completely opaque.
@brain.webster like if that was a bad thing? mark had nothing to do with the scam, for christ’s sake they’re stealing from creators like him
@@WertyTT4 He took a gigantic pile of money from an obvious scammer, and is now claiming ignorance. Is he donating the blood money to charity? Nope.
@@WertyTT4 How naive can you be! These creators would have you believe they were stealing from them wouldn’t they. The reality is they were paid huge sums of money to promote Honey. Affiliate link revenue is pittance compared to sponsorship.
Give him a brake guys 🚔🚗
Fun fact, it had 20,000,000 users before the video, it dropped a LOT since Megalag's video dropped
Not a lot, I never knew anyone who used honey.
@@RZenith "I never knew anyone" is always a very good metric to use, of course.
@@RZeniththe world does not revolve around you
@@RZenith fun fact: people generally surround themselves with people similar to them in terms of hobby, politics, beliefs etc... fact you "do not know anyone" means exactly nothing.
@@RZenith
Yeah yknow, a frequent topic of conversation for my acquaintances is what browser plug-ins we use
No surprise, honey belongs to PayPal, which is another massive shady business company, with so many shady wrong doings over the years…
Well they recently purchased Honey. This “scam” has been running since the beginning of Honey.
@@haydenm2216maybe it was love at first sight
PayPal? Really? I've been using PayPal for years and haven't noticed any wrong doings as a user.
Could you explain?
@@paiman_Reddit will most likely answer your questions
Knowing so many online service that used to be partnered with Paypal all of the sudden just severed their partnership in recent memory make me want to say "I knew it!".
TH-camr and lawyer LegalEagle has just filed a class action lawsuit against Honey.
Awesome. I'm a lawyer myself and the second thing that came to my mind after learning this story was that there's about to be a massive class-action lawsuit against Honey.
@@WRXSEVEN And the problem PayPal is going to face is that it is going to be very easy to specify real monetary damages to their affiliates. This is not some kind of abstract potential advertising revenue loss, it's actual money they siphoned into their own pockets.
@@WRXSEVENthe one i heard about on the steve lehto chanel , was about a 13pg class action, but its only for 5million... thats way too low. But i guess enough creators haven't joined in, so idk.
Millionaire TH-camrs suing because they may have lost out on a few more bucks by not doing their due diligence? Yawn.
@@WRXSEVENwho will be included? Will consumers also get included since honey lied about giving the “best” coupons?
The honey scam: "I'm a TH-camr and need to make money"
i know marques life flashed before his eyes seeing ANOTHER controversy video with his face on the thumbnail 💀
What was the other one?
LOL, he is set for life and almost nothing will stop that. He is a multimillionaire from youtube and he can hire a team of attorneys to fix anything if it arises. He just needs to do what is right and he will be fine in life which is why you see him making this video today.
@@thefooshisloose that didnt save mrbeast from cancel culture
@PAshish-dh5fk mr beast is still happily making more videos after being so called "canceled"
@@PAshish-dh5fk mr beast is doing fine. His recent videos got a ton of views so cancelling him did nothing
Marques. This should be a class-action for creators. And an Anti-Trust for consumers.
Yes. Why is no one talking about legal action?
Wallpapers
@@omermirza5994Prob because “creators” are adding add vids even if one pays for no ads..
Marques: I am a tech guy and I clearly didn’t do my research
Bro is cooked
I think everyone doesn't really understand, this doesn't just affect youtubers, it affects ALL affiliates of any product Honey is also an affiliate of. They have probably stolen a billion of affiliate publisher dollars in their run. So if Honey has an affiliate link to the site another affiliate sent you to, Honey will get paid the commission. It's pure evil.
Another way to put it...
Honey has 17M users. Every time any of those users clicks the Honey button, if Honey is an affiliate of that seller, they will get paid the commission.
That's very conservatively 17M dollars, assuming $1 commission per user
It basically a virus/adware. A dodgy browser extension hijacking commission.
@@DISOPtv who cares, I just want the product I am searching for, at the cheapest possible price.
@@OTH89you missed the point, vendors are able to limit the coupons available on honey’s coupon database so that you don’t get a higher coupon to use. You aren’t getting the best deal
@@OTH89 You won't through Honey that's the point they aren't just stealing from creators they are making deals with businesses so you won't get the cheapest price possible. If there's a 20% off coupon and a 3% coupon Honey will only show you the 3% and take a payback from that company for lying to you.
Glad you removed the ads from your old videos that's too little too late but at least you did it
1:53 I think *_prolific_* is the word you were looking for
😂 100%
profligate
Came here to say this. Ha ha ha
i think 1:43 is the timestamp you were looking for
@@jjhassy Nice try its 1:38
Established Titles and Highland Titles, Honey, Betterhelp........not the first time and probably not the last.
Creators should be more aware of who sponsors them BEFORE the fact.
The damage is already done now.
Better help aswell? Oh the irony!
A podcast I listen to, Painkiller Already, uses the phrase "If the money's there, we don't care". Probably applies to most, if not all, TH-camrs (and people).
@@jamescassar5348betterhelp has had terrible reviews for like.. 10 years
@@jamescassar5348 Yeah it's terrible. and what's worse is they were exposed years ago and I guess people just forgot and then came back with a bunch of new Ads and people defended them.
GMM still promotes better help...
The megalag video is so so good!!!! Worth watching, big time... one of the best videos of 2024
I’m not seeing enough of this in the comments. MegaLags video on this is exceptional journalism and he deserves a lot of credit for his forensic level of investigation and communication to the public.
A little ironic that we have Google to thank for making the megalag video go viral.
MegaLag deserves more credit.
Not sure why people are talking about this megalag person when it’s Coffeezilla who broke the story.
@MateoMorrosMartin Not sure why people are talking about this megalag person when it’s Coffeezilla who broke the story.
This is an IQ test all of these creators failed. The bar was low, too.
Glad you are addressing this. Crazy that it went undetected for years
It was talked about 4 years ago but no one cared. I honestly don't understand why it went so viral now but better late then never.
How do all these creators not see their affiliate links are bringing in zero revenue and then not question why that is?
@plasmac9 They don't, that's the thing. You can't track it
As someone who is in the cybersecurity space a little bit you think someone would have done at least a little bit of research into how it works years ago!
@@someone28I'm not surprised MegaLag was the one to bring this to light, but I wonder how many people contacted TH-camrs about this, surely not too many considering the amount of creators who have done Honey sponsorships?
Influencers when their viewers get scammed: *crickets* 🦗
Influencers when it hits their own pockets: 'Please uninstall!'
The good old classic - It only matters when it affects me.
It's not just them, everyone was affected.
this also affects the users
And you would be better how?
Exactly! Now they are owning up to it, but if it would have been only the users we propably wouldn’t have heard of hem.
Totally agree! If he ever used Honey even once, he would not recommend it
1:38 - I'm an English teacher and I love that this happened because you were looking for the word 'prolific' but 'proliferate' is also a related word but it's a verb whereas the first sentence needed an adjective which caused the slip up. This stuff fascinates me about humans lol
I'm currently majoring in English Lit in my (entering) 8th semester, and wants to be an English Teacher, and I also felt the same lolll
"honey has proliferated around TH-cam" is correct right? Or should it be "honey has become profilic"
I didn't even know 'proliferate' was a word.
This complicates things. Because I'm not going to remember it, but it's still going to taint my ability to find the right word in the moment. I had that happen today during an argument I was having, and the other person knew what I was trying to get at, and helped me find the word, and they even stumbled through some words to try to find it, and... yeah. Language, and language usage/the complexities of communication is interesting and fun.
Oui oui linguini
@@ReclaimerTyphoon Love that the person you were arguing with was trying to help you do that LOL.
1:45 It's "prolific" lol.
Was coming to tell him
I thought it was that too but he was so far off i wasn't sure anymore 😂
Commenting because I too was coming to tell him, and I want to boost this lol
Don't steal his struggle, his vocab needs an upgrade.
“Profligate” could also work in this instance…
I enjoyed this video, and maybe I'll get flamed for this, but I feel like Marques could at least say "Hey, I know I recommended this service, and I'm sorry if you installed it because of that."
I'll go a bit further. Same concerns about doing so.
He doesn't care about us.
This video is easy money, no research needed.
Hopefully you uninstall Honey, so he can get, that affiliate money again.
And he bets, rightfully according to most comments. That viewers see this video, as owning up to a mistake. Despite me and you, not really seeing that. Hence it can repair his recent reputation hit a bit.
@@soul0360wow two intelligent people in a TH-cam comment section, what are the odds?
@@soul0360 Exactly lol Why does he even need to do a video explaining what is already explained wonderfully in the original video? As you said; it's EZ money.
@@soul0360 if he didn't make this vid he'd probably also get backlash
He should donate the money he made off the honey sponsored videos or something. Regardless of this scam, mkbhd made money off of their sponsor.
This is a great lesson that when something is free, it usually is too good to be true.
Ight, grandpa. You done? Got that incredibly cliche thing out of your system?
Not unless is free and open source then it usually isn't. FOSS is great.
Oxygen is free
@@Muaddib1776 toxic 😂
youtube is free
I was waiting for 10 minutes to hear “I’m sorry” for promoting scam, but somehow I didn’t hear it. Marcus, you took (what I’d estimate as) a considerable amount of money from Honey for those ads and your due diligence was “install the extension and buy a few products with it”? Not even trying to understand how their business model would work to be profitable? This is highly irresponsible. I hope this case will be a big lesson for you and other “influencers”. Dislike for the video, you don’t feel sorry, but you should.
I know right? More of a political damage control than a sincere apology.
I also wish he added an apology in there but to be fair he was probably one of the biggest victims here, the honey afiliation was prob a huge net loss for him
I agree, this must be the top comment.
Modern day entitlement is wild. Is Marques your dad? If not, he has no obligation to protect you from stuff he wasn’t even aware of (nor literally hundreds of other creators so it’s not like this is some personal mistake from him)
@@sirebellum0 You promote something to your audience being fully aware they are going to try out the product. This is the whole reason they get paid because they already have a customer base. When you promote something without looking into it You expose them to the dangers of it as well. He’s not a victim. He is an unintentionally accomplice and should be held responsible.
1:43 prolific!
Profitable?
I WAS GOING TO COME DOWN HERE AND SAY THAT
Porportable 🗿
@@Auraachive portable?
@@mechomicsI’m pretty sure he was looking for prolific, he said “proliferating” and was describing how widespread the sponsorships were, or how prolific they were as a sponsor
Let me get this right... Honey is owned by PayPal? So PayPal fully endorses how Honey operates. Goodbye PayPal.
You're only waking up now to paypal being a nefarious scam? They have been using these shady tactics for so many years that I stopped using them many, many years ago when they pulled a similar trick, I don't exactly remember what. I also told all my family to stop using them for the same reason.
I’m strongly considering distancing myself from PayPal. There are times I need it but there are instances (emergency fund savings account) that I could use a number of competitors.
@HistoryInClip credit card?
@HistoryInClip I use direct payments and don't go through PayPal. I'm not sure about others but I always can find another way, thankfully PayPal hasn't monopolised payments where I live (Hungary).
Paypal is so useful for so many interactions online, the failure of honey won‘t really affect them.
Way, waaaaaaay better response than Linus to the whole problem, acknowledged it, showed how you made sure to not promote it further even on older videos, did not get defensive... you did great Marques! Looks like you learned a thing or two...
lol that's a low bar: Hi! I sold something on lown to me for review. (and then goes back to cringe videos.)
@@gorkskoal9315 agree. such a low bar :D
Womp womp womp 😂
Bro why did he stop after 3 sponsored videos when himself said they were so easy to work with. I believe most of them (LTT, MKBHD) found out and told Honey and then Honey paid them to keep their mouths shut. Otherwise it makes no sense why have only 3 sponsored videos when you admit they paid well and were easy to work with. And MKHDB deleting my initial comment when I pointed that out just goes to confirm this.
What a low bar. He's a huge tech channel but can't work out some basic stuff? I can understand some of my makeup YTbers not being that techy, trying to give their followers real savings. This guy knew out of the gate this was a huge data harvesting operation/invasion of privacy (at a minimum) and did it anyway. I did. Never touched the thing, 'cos I have a modicum of tech knowledge.
Tech hardware genius just upset he got scammed. 😂
Thank you for being honest and saying you were also duped by this and owning that. The fact that you went back and got rid of ads on a 4 year old tech videos is also nice and fresh to hear.
Also no one is talking about the fact that browser extensions gather data and that data is so much more valuable than all that they’ve already stole!
If you’re surprised that any company takes your personal data, I mean good luck with every single free thing on your phone/computer
I feel like honey had a story break out on that very topic years ago.
Same with TVs that sell your watch data even from some of the biggest brands. You have to go into the settings and toggle it off.
@joesligo1516 they did. Years ago people noticed it was changing who got credit for the sale. That's why LTT and other creators dropped them.
If someone doesn't know that their data is being collected, they deserve it for being stupid.
I believe Megalag said it was part one of three in a series. The scamming runs so deep it is sad. I removed as soon as I saw his video that day, I tried to spread it around since I have a lot of people who try to support small creators and honey has been taking from all of us. Honey never found me deals but I used it for other tools such as price watching but I always clicked those darn boxes which means every person I ever tried to support while using honey got nothing. I normally go out of my way to click random small creators links when I shop over a large creator .
It's rad of you to try to support small creators thru affiliate links for stuff you were gonna buy anyway👌
@@KameTrick im a small creator myself so I understand, I also believe in karma.
hope you uninstalled it
@CNWPlayer I said I removed as soon as I saw the original video.
@@Jakereviewsall 🤦♂️
Guess the only true sponsor we can really trust is the GOAT, Raid: Shadow Legends
Ngl I’m surprised it took this long for Honey to get exposed
It not it obvious what it been doing and being bought by PayPal made it look legitimate
especially considering how fast Marques usually moves.
@@qazhr true, but at the same time several people were suspicious from the start, I’m just surprised it took like 4 years for their suspicions to be confirmed
@@blackcloud5157 Go bring this loser energy over to Linus’s and Mr. Beast…those dudes have been scamming you for years and haven’t taken an ounce of accountability.
@@blackcloud5157 god yall are so corny 😭
1:40 The word you were looking for is "prolific". 😄
Proliferative*
"Profligiteriverlsh"
Parley, that's the word. Parley
Great breakdown. Reminds me of:
Businesses pay TH-cam to run ads
Users pay TH-cam to not show those ads
damn that hit hard
To be fair, it's not only creators that failed here. There are others that must have missed it. Browser companies, that allow such tactics in their extensions. SEC, TH-cam, and of course all the companies, that operate a referral program and have a deeper insight, into what happens to their cookies.
I don’t think I’ve ever used a TH-camrs affiliate codes. I’ve never once been tempted to use a service that TH-camrs promote. I always just skip through the advertising parts of videos.
almost every time I have ever seen an ad, I never purchase that product because of the ad lol
Sponsor block
Or you ended up clicking, forgot about it and the affiliate code was applied without you knowing 😂
an affiliate code isn't just from a sponsored segment. MKBHD may do a review of the Samsung s24 Ultra for example and put a link to purchase it in the desc of the video. Just by clicking that, the referral is saved to your browser for 30 days for example. It's not always ads
@@bradleybruvva3021 also some sites give the creator a portion of anything purchased on the site over 30 days.
9:00 the funny part is all three parts of the "scam" we're done in the open. They said on their website, on the podcast as well as any one who asked they told them as if there was no issue.
skip to 6:40 if you want to skip him just repeating the original video
Gangster Comment
How is it a gangster Comment? Do you work for Honey/Paypal because you skip the whole HOW honey is scamming consumers .
@@wilinstonthompson1352some of us have watched the entire original video many times and just want a creator's response on it
@soltude But the MAJORITY need to HEAR and SEE the scam these influencers didn't bother to research ( just took the money) and pushed out to their viewers .
@soltude You've watched the original video (from 11 days ago) so many times that you're just here for a little variation? That's sad.
Love your Honesty, Bro❤️
Watching your videos feel like having a conversation with a bro from the hood.
7:44 Liking your own videos, huh? _I see you_
This made me laugh pretty hard, great spot!
I bet the like was from the YT account of the video editor.
I doubt Marques actually edits his own videos these days.
The most underrated comment here 😎
so what?
if u don't support urself who's gonna 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
I can't believe Paypal weren't aware. They bought Honey for $4 billion. There would have been lawyers looking up and down and through the accounts and practices of Honey before they signed the purchase. This is blowing up on Honey, but their owners are just as culpable in my eyes.
Oh they were more than aware. How do you think they got the leverage to limit codes with retailers? Papa Paypal standing behind them with a baseball bat.
Yeah, PayPal definitely knew
Of course, they were aware. You're not buying a company without knowing where their revenue is coming from.
They knew
Paypal probably thought it was a genius idea to poach the affiliates. That's why they paid 4 billion for it.
“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product”
4:33 I've heard that those coupon codes that Honey finds can even include private codes meant exclusively for staff and/or family. That is, unless the store pays Honey the commission. This sounds like what Megalag referred to in the teaser at the end of his video, and I can't wait to see part 2 of this.
My respects for being one of the first (and few) to openly talk about this after the megalag video, you got scammed as well so there is no need to ignore the topic or try to find an excuse to use honey as a pattern. Great guy and great video as always
Marques is NOT the only (or the 1st) creator to talk about this.
@deborahdavis6801 it is one of the first ones to talk after the megalag video*!
Read before you reply
"and only"
yeah no.
A quick search Shows over 20 videos talking about the scam. Some are over 1 week old.
@@beebs4881 There are hundreds of videos talking about the scam, but there are few youtubers, OF THOSE WHO RECOMMENDED USING HONEY, who have spoken out about the scam. And Marques B is one of the biggest youtubers who recommended Honey, and still, he came out publicly to apologize and explain what happened, very very few youtubers have done so and even fewer big youtubers. READ BEFORE COMMENTING 🤦
I think the real lesson is to not trust influencer marketing. If even the biggest channels don't do enough due diligence to protect themselves from being scammed, how much due diligence are they going to do to keep their audience from being scammed when they can profit from the scam?
100% true
It's not that simple. No amount of research can reveal this type of scam especially at the earlier stages.
but he doesnt want to hear that. is funny bc Markus seemed pretty out of touch w the situation like is not a huge issue.
@@collinsonOga people were exposing this 4 years ago
@@collinsonOga bro its a affiliate cookie. literally anyone can right-click inspect and see the webpage and how it works. Noone bothered to look how it worked. thats the point. Honey offered 50K/mo times 3 months for MKBHD to run ads - it was a legit enough company - DONE. No influencer really cares about the audience more than as far as it helps the bottom line of the business. This doesn't make them evil it makes them a business. Look videos and influencers are just advertisers. Watch the videos learn what you need to but watch more than 1 or 2 for a product. Then reddit them, then look at reviews THEN buy. Don't listen to Marquez about a speaker bar - take it as gospel and buy it.
coupon culture has never ended well
the big problem is these youtubers that we trusted they promote any sponsored products
No, they would never promote something unless it was good, like RAID SHADOW LEGENDS . . . . . dam, maybe your right 🤣
Ok, so, what lesson is to be learned from this then? Is it: NEVER TRUST A SALESPERSON? Yes, I think so, take that to heart, please.
Arent they kinda the main victims?
@@cameronwoodle if you wach MegaLag vid you'll know that linus knew about it 4 years ago but they weren't public about it
honestly, the only reason I’ve ever heard about honey is from me watching youtubers.
This is essentially a regurgitation and curation of the original video. I encourage everyone to watch the original as well. It’s amazing investigative journalism.
I’d also love to see creators scammed like this dig into their work with honey and estimate just how much Honey took from their affiliate links. Has to be a way to ballpark it.
righttt i was looking for someone to say something abt him just summarizing the original video and it’s really pissing me off
Would not shock me if we get a peek on that from LTT. But first the response, a offical, take action response. which is probably started and probably being discussed right now.
@@ailhad yall just get pissed at everything
Hes just informing his audience. Many other TH-camrs should do the same bc not everyone saw the mega lag video when it went viral
@@ailhad Bro he's directly crediting him in this video, and this is just clearly to inform people ... I don't know this content creator btw and only saw the original video then was recommended this where I was curious to watch what a "victim" about it would say
Yeah he was not adding anything nor getting mad on them or something but still he was doing a good job summing up the video
FYI : Paypal owns Honey ! Wonder what Paypal is upto !
Gathering data from cookies to take on VISA/MasterCard for selling your shopping habits data.
Time to close your PayPal account, I did a few months ago, can’t remember why, something just didn’t feel right.
Massive charges and exchange rate fees
FYI: you don't need spaces before your punctuation.
@@dylankelner2856 punctuation specifics differ from language to language. No need for spaces in English, but it's not universal, so more a sign of an English as a second language user.
Prolific, YES MKBHD. I laughed out loud on this one 😂
this should be a class action lawsuit.
Don't believe youtubers saying it's possible to win a case like this. What exact party is harmed here and how are they gonna prove damages in the court?
The consumers are getting discounts and saving money, they exaggerated promotion with their "the best deal" but it's just marketing, puffery. Honey didn't directly "scam" any party, it's like suing a company for marketing the product as "the best gaming mouse" or "the best prices" webstores.
As for the creator's affiliates it's also not a direct harm in a legal way, just like adblocking companies can't be proven to do damages to creators in court, can't imagine that happening.
It's going to be insanely difficult, if not impossible, to get a full record of damages and lost income across the board. Going to be very interesting to watch how this plays out from here.
@@msaadmin123 never mind you're a bot saying the same thing in every comment.
I’m skeptical as hell about class action lawsuits (especially with the new business-friendly / anti-consumer presidency coming in), but we don’t know unless we try. That’s what most american lawsuits are: swinging wildly and hoping for a hit
For the users, yes. For the content creators that leveraged affiliate links there are measurable losses. None of the creators seem to be talking about their legal pursuits though... This was straight up fraud and the directors of Honey should be personally liable for knowingly defrauding people.
Don't use any discount extensions as they all might be doing the same thing.
Also websites that list coupon codes do the same shit. They inject their affiliate link/cookie the moment you reveal the code
@@RybekRybs that's impossible. A browser window cannot inject anything in an another window. That would cause a massive security vulnerability.
@@BlueSheep777 Well maybe "inject" was a bit too strong of a word, but still, the moment you use a website hosting coupon codes, and click on one to reveal it, the website then reffers you to the store, using their aff link, and then reveal the coupon code. Usually the tab you were on gets redirected, while a new tab gets opened with the coupon code.
It might not be as sneaky as what the extensions are doing with the small tab being opened then closed, but still.
The copuon code websites and extension bussiness model makes no sense, until they make the user unknowingly use their aff link.
@@BlueSheep777 They usually have an affiliate link themselves and when you click on it, it overwrites the creators affiliate link in this case.
HAPPY NEW YEARRR
I need 9 more hrs
2 and a half hours for me :)
30 more mins for me :D
2 and a half for me too
About 12h for me
Stop looking at ur other screens to inform us !!! Lmao 😅
0:15 I guess my feed is stuck on futbol, cameras, and travel content because i'm now hearing about this
Same
Thank you Marques for discussing this and being so open to the Honey scandal. It’s not an easy thing to speak about something you endorsed (even as a paid sponsorship, because you have to agree to take said sponsorship) and admit something wasn’t right and you’re stepping it back.
Leaving all controversies behind in 2024, starting the new year with a clean slate.
Why? Why should you uninstall a product that potentially saves you, the user, some money, because some rich TH-camr isn't making any money out of it? I wouldn't install Honey anyway, but that's about what's bound to be software that has privacy concerns with my browser history.
@@andrewgoodall2183because it’s not saving you money in most cases. Companies pay Honey to NOT show you applicable discount codes, and they are probably increasing the price to compensate.
No honey is also not giving you the best coupon. The shop can decide what coupons are shown to you if they partnerd with honey. And you would have more percent off if you would have just googled a coupon.
Honey was bought for 3 billion dollers by PayPal. Don't you think Paypal has enough money? If you don't want support a rich youtuber, why do you want to support and give money to a billion dollar company? @@andrewgoodall2183
@@andrewgoodall2183yeah if it’s actually saving you money as the consumer, who cares about the rich tubers
0:35 - subtle yet brilliant
what r we looking at?
Yeah what’s the supposed Easter egg here?
The easter egg is that you get a Honey pre-roll ad before going to the "Honey Scam" video
Sooooo don’t trust your next promotions?
5:55 it's like youtube, companies pay youtube advertise their ads and the users pay to not watch their ads
The thing with youtube is that most users still don't pay for premium so its kinda still fine
There's an earning section for TH-camrs: Distribution of earning.
Which explains how much money they got from Ads and from TH-cam premium users as well. They pay a tiny percentage of premium to the creators. Or at least they used when I was working on my channel as well back until 2022.
@@mightymallet5474 can confirm, they still pay us for Premium views
Shoulnd’t Marques have talked about his own lack of research before endorsing a product like this one? So disappointed
Marques? Research? Honey didn't pay him to _research_
Victim blaming are we?
8:45 Haven't watched the whole video, have you? He actually admits that they didn't do their due diligence properly and need to be more vigilant in the future.
@@Beardsandbars Oh nono, not from my part at least. It's sad that he's the victim of the Honey scam and I hope he gets justice on the class action lawsuit...
Only that Marques is a corpo shill, and they only _research_ that he does is the one that benefits his "sponsor of the day"...
did you watch the video?
the amount of times you used the term “lesson learned” over the past few months
And how many of them will stick? Zero.
This whole video could have been a tweet…
1:20 btw since megalog uploaded the video, user drop from 20million to 17 million
Mega log deserves followers
I swear if Megalog doesn't get any subscribers, I would be immensely disappointed.
But I hope more and more TH-camrs come out with this so that honey goes down. I wonder if they'll come out with a statement or simply disappear like every other company that does this.
I'm glad that other channels have been pushing this video so much, first Charlie, now Marques. Hopefully this becomes a turning point in the online creator market.
The fact that huge content creators didn't sue them and make that public I think makes it clear that the contract they signed had a gray area were Honey could pull off that stunt.
YEP
I don't see how content creators can sue them. They lied to the users by not providing the best coupons. They didn't lie to the creators right?
@@bloedekuh They literally stole their affiliate commission
@@bloedekuhthey sniped their affiliate links, so the creators lost out on commission, so yes they can sue
@@bloedekuhThey literally stole the creators kickback...
Congrats on failing to understand the concept of the problem 👏🏼
Doesn’t youtube kinda do the same?
They charge companies to show us ads and then charge us… not to show them?
Honey is not the only company or the last company doing this. It is just the largest one right now. Expect to see a lot of copycats claiming to be not-a-honey-scam and finding you really sick coupons in the first few uses. Once you trust them, they'll be the new honeys.
Google should remove the extension from the chrome store
Nah, they are busy remove adblock
Nah, they are busy adding more adblocks blockades.
Google is the worse scammer of them all!!! The mothership of spyware...
Googles probably just angry they didn't think of it first.
@@LewisBall no one give af about creators making more money bro. People only care about the honey scam because they get worse deals.
I really appreciate that you made this video. As far as I know you are the first of the major YT creators who reacted this way to MegaLag's video. Chapeau!
I was wondering if that's because on vacation and Marques actually made the time to make this video. Can't risk his reputation any more!
charlie did it too
It would be awesome if all the TH-camrs got together and would create a competition, which does not scam the customer. You could make it a hero story.
It's almost like no company has your best interest in mind
Bingo
WHAT?! YOU MEAN THEY ONLY SAY THE RIGHT THINGS IN ORDER TO APPEASE ME EMOTIONALLY BUT ACTUALLY JUST WANT TO USE ME FOR MY BUSINESS?!
Only can trust mom and pop operations. Some of em anyway
Welcome to toxic capitalism.
Companies. Billionaires. Politicians. Never trust any of them.
Good for you for putting a video out about this and removing your sponsor segments, but I think a little more taking of responsibility and apology is deserved
Nah he and other creators is as mucha victim as consumers, if not more so. They were lured in by an easy to work with sponsor that seemed on the surface to be great fro their viewers too, and took actually quite a lot of digging to realise it was a scam.
An apology for you getting customer deals without them having to search for codes themselves?
There's two major impacts here:
1. On the creator - they are likely mad they have been cheated and as such they are publishing hit pieces on honey
2. On the customer - the customer learns that they may not be getting the best deals for SOME businesses due to agreements between honey and the business. The customer could go back to searching for coupons but will they? Likely not. Even if you get 5% off instead of 10% off that's better than 0% off you were going to get without a code.
A bigger issue would be the data mining they are doing being connected to your browser and seeing everywhere you go. What Marques listed is just him (and other creators) being sour their sales were stolen.
@@Jrfusion08Consumers are often clicking affiliate codes do so under the belief they’re benefiting their creator. The money going straight to PayPal instead, under the hood, is fraudulent to the consumer.
@@Jrfusion08 what about an apology to fellow creators? People who never got sponsored by honey were affected too
@@andreas-panay I can see how it might have been hard to tell at the time, and I don't blame these creators too much, but you still hurt people because you didn't do enough research and see the red flags. At least say something like "I've learned from this and I promise I will do as much research as I can text time" this video reads like "this sucks but there was nothing I would've done differently"
Honey is an evil genius uninstalled
How does it hurt us consumers? We would at least be getting 3% discount as opposed to none.