{"id":829505,"date":"2025-02-24T14:12:29","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T20:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/24\/why-creators-pushback-against-honey-is-about-more-than-skimmed-affiliate-revenue\/"},"modified":"2025-02-24T14:12:29","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T20:12:29","slug":"why-creators-pushback-against-honey-is-about-more-than-skimmed-affiliate-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/24\/why-creators-pushback-against-honey-is-about-more-than-skimmed-affiliate-revenue\/","title":{"rendered":"Why creators\u2019 pushback against Honey is about more than skimmed affiliate revenue"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Alexander Lee<\/a><\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 January 10, 2025<\/span> \u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n Ivy Liu <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Over the past two weeks, a growing cohort of digital creators has spoken out against the Honey browser extension for swapping creators\u2019 affiliate marketing links with its own. Beyond their stolen affiliate revenue, however, creators are criticizing \u2014 and suing \u2014 Honey because they believe it has hurt their ability to sign future brand partnerships.<\/p>\n

The controversy kicked off on Dec. 21, 2024, when the YouTuber MegaLag released a video essay<\/a> claiming how Honey, a PayPal-owned browser extension, makes money by replacing creators\u2019 affiliate marketing links with its own, thus gleaning a share of affiliate revenue that would otherwise go to the creators themselves. A Honey representative did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

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Since December, the Honey scandal has become something of a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre within the YouTube community, in part due to the fact that prominent creators such as James \u201cMrBeast\u201d Donaldson and Marques \u201cMKBHD\u201d Brownlee had previously promoted the service in sponsored videos. On Jan. 2, legal YouTubers such as Devin \u201cLegalEagle\u201d Stone<\/a> initiated a class-action lawsuit against the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the pure irony of the fact that the biggest creators on YouTube \u2014 the exact ones who were promoting it \u2014\u00a0were the ones that were hurt most by what Honey is doing,\u201d said YouTuber Bennett \u201c@moneymindnews<\/a>\u201d Santora. \u201cIt\u2019s something that everyone\u2019s seen promoted by their favorite YouTubers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Affiliate marketing is a significant revenue stream for many creators, and although it\u2019s unclear exactly how much affiliate revenue Honey is said to have skimmed from creators over the years, some YouTubers\u2019 estimates are in the millions<\/a>. But Stone\u2019s class-action lawsuit against the company is claiming that the true monetary damage of Honey\u2019s scheme could be in the billions<\/a> due to its impact on creators\u2019 future brand partnership business.<\/p>\n

Honey\u2019s business model relies on the practice of last click attribution, which gives all credit for conversions such as affiliate-link clicks to the final touchpoint of a consumer\u2019s journey \u2014\u00a0in this case, Honey, rather than the creator or influencer whose affiliate link introduced the consumer to the product. Honey has also made it impossible for creators to know exactly how many sales truly come from their affiliate links, damaging the metrics that creators often share with marketers to score direct brand deals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s data-driven era, one of the key benefits of working with influencers is their ability to deliver targeted insights and measurable results,\u201d said Niki Albon, head of creative for agency Cherry Pick Talent. \u201cIf such practices occur, they risk skewing results, which could harm creators by diminishing their perceived value. This, in turn, could result in fewer opportunities and lost earnings as brands base future decisions on these flawed metrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Honey\u2019s business practices impact creators of all sizes, it\u2019s the smaller-to-mid-sized creators who rely on affiliate marketing for a large chunk of their revenue who say they are most significantly affected. YouTuber Tyler \u201cAntenna Man\u201d Kleinle, for example, told Digiday that affiliate links account for roughly half of the income from his channel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Kleinle, who is participating in the ongoing class-action lawsuit, Honey\u2019s skimming of affiliate revenue was certainly harmful \u2014\u00a0but the YouTuber believes he may have experienced a deeper harm due to the potential effect of his depressed affiliate marketing metrics on his direct brand partnerships.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat actually has a higher impact, because a lot of the companies pay a higher affiliate commission than Amazon does,\u201d said Kleinle, who estimated that his potential losses were \u201cat least in the hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.\u201d \u201cIf Honey is taking the affiliate commission from that, they are essentially taking more money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the original YouTubers who promoted Honey and were directly sponsored by the company, some have used the scandal as a content opportunity, publishing mea culpas or explainer videos, while others have remained silent, possibly due to the risk of legal retribution by their former sponsor. Regardless, MegaLag\u2019s video essay appears to have turned the public opinion of the YouTube community squarely against Honey.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor all we know, it could be breaching their contract with Honey to speak out against it,\u201d said Dylan \u201cYuB<\/a>\u201d Russell, a formerly Honey-sponsored YouTuber who was featured in MegaLag\u2019s video. \u201cI was worried about that making my own video;\u00a0what if I actually get in legal trouble by saying \u2018here\u2019s how to uninstall Honey\u2019 in my video after doing a brand deal with them?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/digiday.com\/?p=565124<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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By Alexander Lee \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 January 10, 2025 \u00a0\u2022 Ivy Liu Over the past two weeks, a growing cohort of digital creators has spoken out against the Honey browser extension for swapping creators\u2019 affiliate marketing links with its own. Beyond their stolen affiliate revenue, however, creators are criticizing \u2014 and suing \u2014 Honey because they believe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":829506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4706,37921,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-829505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-creators","8":"category-pushback","9":"category-youtube-videos"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}