YouTuber LegalEagle sues PayPal over 'sleeping leech' Honey extension | TechCrunch
A new lawsuit alleges that the PayPal-owned browser extension Honey is cheating creators out of money. Honey, which PayPal acquired for $4 billion in
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As much as I enjoy watching LTT content, I have to speak out about how they realized Honey was fucking them and then said NOTHING to their audience or to other YouTubers. I think that is just plain shitty of them and has put a sour taste in mouth with their content now. If they did say something, I apologize. I just haven’t seen it since the only “social media” I use is this singular one, Lemmy.
I don't enjoy watching ltt anymore since a good few years, but I'm still going to come to their defence :)
They discussed dropping Honey on their forum in march 2022: "We ended the partnership with Honey due to the way their service interacted with affiliate links. Essentially, if someone clicked on a affiliate link (For example, one of ours below in the video description on YouTube), and then if they "use honey" and search for a deal, Honey will override that tracking link even if they don't find you a deal. ".
https://linustechtips.com/topic/1415146-weekly-sponsorship-suggestioncomplaint-thread-feb-28-2022/
When they defended themselves against the recent accusations, that they didn't make enough noise when dropping Honey in 2022, their defence was that they thought that only creators were disadvantaged (a few 100 people?). They claim to have been unaware that the users of Honey (the hundreds of thousands of LTT viewers) were being disadvantaged as well. They also seemed to be unaware that Honey's behaviour is likely illegal, at least LTT made no mention on the legality of it. https://therecenttimes.com/news/linustechtips-addresses-megalags-honey-allegations-defends-transparency Which checks out with their 2022 post.
If they had known that the users of Honey were being bamboozled as well, I'm sure that they would have made a video about it. But making a complaint video to basically say that an ex sponsor was stealing some of their marbles, might have given a bad look. + given more publicity to Honey, which LTT probably didn't want to happen.
While I see your point, I have to say posting about it on their own forums, where a lot of people that normally see their videos will not see it (since I’m sure that not everyone who subscribes to their main channel also would go to their forums…) I still think it’s pretty shitty to not inform your coworkers (other YouTubers) and especially their viewers who only tune in for videos they find interesting (like me). If they’re screwing over content creators, why would you not assume they’re also doubly screwing the regular joes?
Also, look at GamersNexus. They have no issues letting the people who respect them know when a company is up to no good, which in turn garners them even more respect and adoration.
“Hmm. Point out foul play, but lose out on some of that sweet sweet moolah? Nah. Can’t do that. That might make me look advertiser unfriendly!” Is basically what you’re getting at. I think that is a shitty mindset to have when shilling for companies.
Of course, no disrespect towards you, and I absolutely thank you for bringing this to the conversation. I was not aware of it because I am not that deep in the Linus Tech Tips community, I just find some of their videos fun/interesting.
LTT is entertainment, I wouldn't expect in depth reporting from them. They don't have that anal retentive attention to details/all angles that Gamer's Nexus or Louis Rossman have. If LTT made videos where they attack stuff that they think is wrong, then I'd expect them to go on their face more often than not. And attacking large companies with a poorly constructed case, would always come back to bite them in the ass.
Very few people can do the kind of repeated reporting that Gamer's Nexus and Louis Rossman do + stay in business. I can't blame LTT for sticking to what they're good at (superficial entertainment).
"That might make me look advertiser unfriendly!” Not what I was saying at all. I said that in the context of the time it might have made them look unnecessarily greedy to the public + provide free advertising + extra users for Honey.
So the scenario is that they know Honey is losing them money, but it's saving user's money by finding them great deals (since that part of the controversy wasn't known at the time).
And you are proposing they make a video complaining about it. A big YouTuber millionaire telling people "hey, I know this extension is making you money, but please consider not using it because we are profiting off of our affiliate links less when you do and our profits are more important than your savings".
How do you think that would go? We all know how such a video would be received.
You would simply tell your side of the story, and give caution to users of the extension that shady behavior like that is always accompanied by even more shady stuff.
Not really that hard to do, and you gave the info out to people who will dedicate their time (as MegaLag did) into looking into it either for their own interests or to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Except it wasn't saving people money. It actually was hiding coupons from users.
But like they wrote, that wasn't known at the time.
I mean it seems totally on brand for Linus, especially after auctioning off 1 of 1 prototypes he promised to give back months ago. Only to hide behind the fact the auction was for charity.
Hah, yeah I guess he does own goal to protect others often.
That's an egregious mistake of a logistics employee wrongly asset tagging a prototype, ending up creating a huge controversy. Linus never named the employee and took all the heat on himself even though the situation had nothing to do with him.
Making a big deal out of Honey taking creator's money would again move all the heat on him while warning other creator's. But I think it would go just as bad.
Selling the prototype was only a small part of the issue. They also tried to ruin the brand by testing it on hardware it was explicitly said not to be compatible with, later stating that it was not worth $500 to redo those tests. And then went on to state they had come to an agreement with said company to reimburse them, which turned out to be false. They had just sent their first email in ages to them minutes before posting that statement.
Yes, it was really bad.
I question your assertion that it was purposefully done as a secret conspiracy to ruin a random brand. Don't attribute to malice what can adequately explained by stupidity.
No, they weren't trying to ruin the brand, they were trying to make a YouTube video, made a bad job with multiple compounding mistakes, and ended up hurting the brand without that being their intention.
That one looks like an honest mistake.
The obvious contempt linus showed for the sloppy prototype and its extortionate cost is an aggravating factor however.
He said on the WAN show that when they dropped Honey a few years ago, the news was going around all over creator circles and a lot of other creators dropped them then too. And they didn't make a video because at the time only the affiliate yoinking was known, and the audience would probably call them shills for making a video about how they're losing money due to their audience saving money.
I don't think his defense is 100% airtight, but it's useful context.
I mean, is it saving users money though? It’s not, the charge is that it’s just taking other affiliate code out of the link and replacing it with its own. And just doing it to small creators? I don’t know that much about it, maybe that last part isn’t true. But it’s not saving them money that’s the problem, but replacing affiliate links with their own. And they’re saying that it’s just that they were the “last click,” even if it was from an affiliate site. Meaning they probably put it in their code somewhere to briefly load honey looking for “deals,” meaning they were the last one to redirect the click and then they get the money.
Will be interesting to see how they were doing it.
Honey would look for coupom codes, and sometimes it would find them, it wasn't always, but also wasn't never, so yes, they were "saving money" for the user as far as people knew at the time. After MegaLag's video we know that the whole "find all available and working coupons to guarantee the best deal" was horseshit, and they were in partnership with business controlling the whole thing, but back when LTT and other creators dropped Honey, that part wasn't known yet, just that they poached affiliate links. Which is very scummy, but likely not illegal.
Linus also repeatedly says LMG is not your friend. He knows he fucks the audience over sometimes and wants to absolve himself of it but he's got 100 people on payroll that he needs to capture the surplus labour from.
I think they talked about it on WAN show and said that other creators already knew which is why you haven't really seen Honey ads anymore even before the recent video came out and they didn't know about the consumer issues so they didn't think it warranted a video.
Tell that to all the creators who are coming out and screaming that they never knew and are anxious to join the class action lawsuit that Legal Eagle and Wendover productions is bringing.
Linus is really, really shitty at responding to criticism. I don’t think it’s malice, it just didn’t occur to them.
He should just be upfront and say “you know what? We should have done better here”. That’s it.
I don’t watch the WAN show because it’s not really my type of content. Haven’t they addressed concerns before on their main channel, or am I mistaken? If they found out Honey was scamming them, and just assumed other YouTubers knew or their audience, why not just make a quick video about it with a more in depth talking about it on the WAN show?
This gist of it from the WAN show was this:
Again, I must bring the point that you can still say your side of the story (here is what we found out about Honey) and caution users of the extension to be wary of not only this shady business, but that who knows what else they might be doing.
Do people really think that someone with the platform as big as Linus Tech Tips shouldn’t bring awareness to such topics? Why not? Especially if you were once shilling for them??
I'm trying to remember if they have, I feel like most of the addressing of problems with sponsors has either been done on the forums or on the WAN show. And the reason why they probably don't do that unless it's like a really bad consumer affecting thing is because of how big LTT is now making a quick video isn't really as easy as for smaller creators. It's the classic problem of smaller companies or creators being much more nimble and agile to react and make quick videos about things compared to a bigger company like LTT that has writers that have to write the video, then they have to schedule a time to film it and since Linus would probably host would have to wait for him to be available, then it goes off to an editor to be edited, a thumbnail artist makes a thumbnail for it, and it's slotted into the upload schedule which already has a number of other videos in it. It's just a much longer and more expensive process that makes creating a quick video not as much of an option anymore, especially considering YouTube will punish your future videos if you upload a video that doesn't do as well. I still think they should have talked about it or atleast looked into it a bit more and realized there was a lot more going on but I understand why they didn't.
They've only made a standalone video addressing stuff a few times on their channel, the vast majority of the time they save it for WAN Show or at most a community post.
I'm happy to be corrected, but my understanding is this all stems from a MegaLag video published a month ago. There would be no need for LegalEagle to republish all the claims and it understandably takes some time to file suit. In short, the info was already out there for everyone to see.
I'm pretty sure ltt stands for Linus tech tips here
Good looking out. Way too many acronyms in this thread related to YouTube drama that I frankly don't care about.
You are absolutely correct. I hadn’t thought about that. I will try to use the full name first from now on and then the acronym afterwards to make it easier for all to know what is what.
Thank you for bringing that to my attention!
I watched the MegaLag video, and I may be mistaken, but he is the one that said LTT never said anything to anyone and just let it go. Thats what I’m referring to.
Spineless tech tips