PayPal Honey steals affiliate links and lies about finding the best coupons
π Fuck PayPal
And fuck Linus Tech Tips for intentionally keeping quiet about this after they found out.
Why do I feel like mentioning the LTT was very personal?π
They're one of the largest tech media companies and deliberately chose to sweep this under the rug instead of reporting on it. Then they took sponsorships from Karma, which is a competitor to Honey that does the exact same thing.
LTT says to have not known users were being mistreated at the time they dropped the sponsor, and that they didn't discover it but were informed.
No, they are not one of largest tech media companies They have less than what 100 employees. Maybe you used the wrong term?
When did they learn about it? Where your proof?
When did they learn about it? Where your proof?
Watch the video.
seriously... did you watch the video?
https://youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk?t=785
Here. Here's a link to the exact moment that entire chapter starts.
I watched it, but I'll reserve my judgment until the next wan show because I don't know if it has been mentioned before on an earlier show or how the problem has been interpret by staff.
... Ok well here's the link to the moment (in the video you watched) where we have one **staff ** member giving an official response to how LTT interpreted the problem in a forum post on their website.
https://youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk?t=811
And here's a link to their youtube channel where they talk about honey
https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips/search?query=honey
You'll notice. There isn't one.
So for at least two years, they knew honey was stealing affiliate links and considered it a big enough problem to end their partnership, but did not consider it a big enough issue to make a video on it.
I dunno why you keep sending me a bunch of text and videos. I'm going to wait until the next wan show, so I can understand what really happened inside.
I'm down to listen to their response myself but as someone who tried really hard to explain away their last dumb controversy only to be proven wrong multiple times, I wouldn't be surprised if it was just pure negligence. Actions speak louder than words and their actions have shown they're a flawed company like any other despite what their conversations on WAN show would have you believe.
Fuck Honey/PayPal first and foremost, don't get me wrong. But unless there were legal issues around it, we also can't ignore it if the biggest tech YouTube channel found out about one of the biggest sponsors on YouTube being a scam, stopped working with them for that reason, but said absolutely nothing to anyone else.
Linus said they were unaware Honey was being bad for users when they dropped Honey.
I'm unaware of when Honey was purposely giving users not the best coupons - did that happen back then?
I saw the wan show and they didn't know they were affecting viewers, only affecting themselves. They address the problem and moved on. If viewers were affected, they would probably been a bigger deal.
I still don't understand why it's Linus' job, just because he does "tech"? There are even bigger creators like MKBHD or Mark Rober (has scam videos). They have information now, but will they probably not even address it.
First of all, Lemmy has a lot of users for whom English is a second language. So maybe don't be a jackass about correcting grammar.
Secondly, in case you happen to be in that group of people 'largest media company' in this context applies to their reach, and not to their actual size. They are 'large' because they have a large audience, generate a lot of revenue, and are worth a lot of money. LMG also comprises 10 different YouTube channels with maybe 10 billion views between them.
Look I'm not correcting grammar, I'm not native English speaker myself + I'm very dyslexic.
But when someone says the biggest tech media companies, you put them in same category as Disney, Apple and so on, which makes them very small.
Sometimes people exaggerate and if you point out what they said is inaccurate then they get mad you're not addressing their main point.
People are going mad anyways, doesn't really matter especially here on lemmy Β―β \β _β (β γβ )β _β /β Β―
People are putting the blame on creators, instead of PayPal/honey, when creators are the victims too. We don't know the full story from LLT from their side if "deliberately chose to sweep this under the rug instead of reporting on it"
If I'm questioning it, I'm going to get negative feedback because the narrative is they are to blame because they are "big".