The Honey Scam: Explained

Don't. Use. Honey.

Intro Track: Hocus Pocus

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[MrUnknownXD]

Any product that has massive "influencer" marketing push is an instant *RED FLAG* for me

[thecuddlysatan]

1:25 Just so y’all know: Honey had 20M users before the Megalag story broke out.

[b.d]

Honey has never found me a deal, not once. Glad to see them going under.

[DJLsbVapes]

No surprise, honey belongs to PayPal, which is another massive shady business company, with so many shady wrong doings over the years…

[ToolDemos]

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.

[HeisenbergFam]

The fact Markiplier predicted this scam like 5 years ago is wild

[Waldohasaskit]

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.

[member]

skip to 6:40 if you want to skip him just repeating the original video

[nowayspidey]

"They called me a madman"
~ Markiplier

[Philipsfuture]

...if the product is free, then you're the product...

[King_zack_gaming]

I'm actually proud of myself that I was so lazy to add honey to my browser

[timaidley]

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."

[ThrillerALi]

Report “Honey” to the FTC and Consumer Protection Bureau. It would be a step towards deterring this kind of behavior.

[FreezeFun]

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...

[flamingburitto]

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.

[testingbruin]

Did anyone hear any real ownership or apology for promoting a bad sponsor/ product? The gist I observed was I'm a victim just like everyone else so let's just move on? It's really sad to see this kind of response.

[fillory]

6:10 it’s not simply 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”

[nicholaskarpuk]

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."

[clarryvu]

Just a head up for folks that have also been inundated with Youtube 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.

[emanuelqfernandes]

So basically, this is a redone video of the MegaLag one. Nothing new, no real apologies and now it talks bad on the sponsor because it was caught upon.

People haven't learned from the Established Titles scam? This is the same: influencers don't do their due diligence on sponsors, they just grab that money and have zero accountability on the afterwards.