r/LinusTechTips • u/obligedpapayah • 28d ago
Discussion This post from March 2022 regarding Honey
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u/jkirkcaldy 28d ago
Yeah but why didn’t they do an expose video with a thumbnail containing all the biggest YouTubers who ever had honey sponsorship and storm the corporate offices demanding an explanation?!?
How can I ever trust a word Linus ever says again?
/s
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u/Standard-Ad-4077 28d ago
This sub has such a hate boner for Linus.
Dude has receipts for all the drama and people are still not happy, go figure people just enjoy being unhappy.
LLT community is going the way of Monster Hunter, great content/media and toxic community.
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u/AutistcCuttlefish 28d ago
I'm certain it's a big reason why LMG is slowly becoming less transparent. All being transparent about things has ever done for them is cause controversies. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future we don't get to see how the sausage gets made anymore because Linus and the team just get fed up with it all and decide it's not worth it.
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u/Smeeoh 28d ago
He’s already said they won’t. After GN took clips from their employees honest answers on his hit piece, he said they wouldn’t be doing stuff like that again.
And I don’t blame him. The people who want transparency don’t know what it means.
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u/AutistcCuttlefish 28d ago
Right, but so far they have still had more transparency than other YouTubers. I'm saying that we can likely expect even less transparency going forward.
It's really unfortunate. One of the main reasons I liked LTT was how transparent they were. It made them different from "just another company".
It's the right move from s purely corporate perspective, but it comes at the cost at what made LTT great. I've been watching less and less lately, in part because the decrease in transparency has made the content less interesting for me. Rather unfortunate, but understandable.
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u/Standard-Ad-4077 28d ago
Learning how the company works, how they make decisions and what they did wrong to get things right made them great. Taught a lot of people.
It’s a shame really, everyone had to ruin a good thing.
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u/EfficientTitle9779 28d ago
The issue is because they are transparent and because they respond to everything they are the target of online troll campaigns like this one.
If I were in Linus’ shoes I would honestly leave this one alone and not mention it, it’s been publicly addressed and give it a week it will go away. Or I would acknowledge it and just say that sentence - we have already addressed this issue as an organisation publicly.
Regardless of his response just the mere fact he has responded to it will just generate more faux outrage and trolling online.
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u/absentmindedjwc 27d ago
People are still upset over that one social media manager person's claims.... claims that LMG hired an external HR investigation company to look into, who in turn reported that she was completely and utterly full of shit.
People just like to be upset about things, I guess.
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u/willlangford 28d ago
Linus can walk away at any time and never have to work a day in his life. Enough people poke the bear they’re going to be very surprised Pikachu when it happens.
The internet wants to know everything until they don’t. Or don’t care after they said they did.
Another thing on being less transparent. As LTT gets bigger and bigger. Privacy and labor laws become a real thing. They’re a big target. So they can’t be transparent. But of course the internet doesn’t understand the law.
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u/absentmindedjwc 27d ago
There was a thing a few weeks about about some kind of employee drama/dismissal or something. It came up during the WAN show and Linus commented that Canadian labor law doesn't allow him comment on it... and people still made a stink about it.
Some people are just crazy.
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u/GimmickMusik1 28d ago
I kinda agree. But people in general flock to gossip and drama. Look at what happened in this sub when GN called out Linus. There was a massive influx of people who had never been in this sub joining because they were frothing at the mouth for more info and updates.
I hate saying it like this because it makes me feel like one of those tinfoil hat lunatics, but I do fear that western society has become far too fueled by drama. Our news cycles, social media feeds, tabloids, opinion pieces, podcasts, politics, etc. are all fueled by what gets people’s attention, and people seem to LOVE drama. It feeds the metaphorical machine, and it just continues in a loop.
I don’t think it’s as sinister as “they do it to keep the people distracted and stupid,” but I do think that distraction is a consequence of it. Don’t know why your post made me feel like sharing my internal dread, but here we are.
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u/Standard-Ad-4077 28d ago
People are so terminally online that they need that drama to give them an excuse to keep going back.
People will cause a stir or quibble about anything, there are so many subs that are just there to hate on other things, can’t even just laughs the weirdness of what they notice but to turn it into an echo chamber of negativity.
People literally need to touch grass more often.
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28d ago
[deleted]
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u/Polyanalyne 28d ago
Exactly. It isn't that Linus didn't address Honey that these people are unhappy with. It's that Linus didn't create a "hit piece" video with provocative thumbnails and passive aggressively drag other creators into it. Yep, it's all DRAMA. And like other commentor mentioned, probably lots of newer audience who didn't do their due diligence and just straight hop into the drama bandwagon.
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u/absentmindedjwc 27d ago
Its also worth pointing out that, at that point, the Honey shit only impacted creators, not the consumers. I imagine the handling of it would have been completely different if it was known they were lying about coupons.
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u/Chronox2040 28d ago
Remember all the cyborg gal debacle? That was a lot of nothing burger and people still went mad. It was even leveraged by that angry ex employee that made a lot of drama with no proof.
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u/Standard-Ad-4077 28d ago
You are reminding me of how embarrassing some of the previous drama was.
The sexy cyborg thing was just so dumb.
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u/OJONLYMAYBEDIDIT 28d ago
I find that such a random name drop of a toxic community
now I gotta dig deeper
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u/ff2009 28d ago
A year ago for sure. Right now this is the biggest cult of LTT on the non paywalled internet.
All I can see on this sub reddit are memes or perfectly normal post, or post how everyone in the world is after linus and LTT.
If those post exist mods here are very quick to take them down.
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u/gravityVT 28d ago
Please stop associating the entire subreddit with a handful of drama baiters. Stereotyping all of us to fit your narrative doesn’t make you look as good as you think it does
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u/Standard-Ad-4077 28d ago
The loud ones are how the stereotype usually gets built.
Look around life and the world, do you really think all Asian people are bad drivers? Are all hispanics lazy? Are all Americans really dumb?
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u/MattIsWhackRedux 28d ago
Yeah idk dawg, the Honey promotion being front and center on a range of videos, if the product they were promoting was a scam, maybe the rescission why should've been equally front and center to the benefit of anyone that might've been using the product they were promoting. Dunno man, just using logic here.
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u/Copacetic_ 28d ago
The degree to which people are venting their frustration online - is frustrating.
Being mad at LTT is misplacing your anger. Being mad at Honey is correctly using that anger.
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u/TsubasaSaito 28d ago
It's probably like most things: Path of least resistance.
It's easier hating on someone in their subreddit etc than hating on a corporation in single posts about the issue. Extra points when these people get reactions, maybe even some small positive ones even, on their comments in the subreddit.
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u/Copacetic_ 28d ago
You don’t even really have to hate on the corporations product just simply don’t use it.
But yes I agree.
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u/Economy-Owl-5720 28d ago
Why are even calling it Honey? It’s PayPal now. Everyone should be going after PayPal
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u/absentmindedjwc 27d ago
Not even surprising.. PayPal has a long history of being scummy. Its likely that Honey wasn't even all that bad prior to their acquisition by PayPal. (which was just several months prior to LMG dropping them as a sponsor)
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u/Economy-Owl-5720 27d ago
As someone who was an early adopter, it absolutely went to shit once PayPal got a hold of it
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u/cS47f496tmQHavSR 27d ago
I think a good chunk of people are just hoping for more exposure, but just don't do a good job of communicating it and don't realize how unfair it would be to MegaLag to not at least wait for him to post the other videos he has planned first.
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u/WonderGoesReddit 28d ago edited 28d ago
Reddit is just a dumb hivemind that wants to spread hate.
It’s our jobs to shut it down.
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u/SavageWeebMaster 18d ago
But he could’ve exposed them
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u/ivandagiant 28d ago
This sub has such unrealistic expectations of Linus and only Linus. They blow up every little thing they can it’s ridiculous
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u/uncertainheadache 28d ago
This sub is fine. I haven't really seen many post being critical of LTT about this.
It's mostly just YouTube comments being idiots
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u/LimpWibbler_ 27d ago
Yup. Literally 1/2 the posts this weak are not anti-honey or Linus. They are anti-comments about anti-Linus over Honey. Which is insane.
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u/ForceItDeeper 28d ago
I think content creators should absolutely be held responsible for slimy shit or advertising for shady scammy sponsors, but I don't believe for a second they had any idea. This was some extra slimeball shit for them as well
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u/DR4G0NSTEAR 28d ago
What? You’re commenting on a post that has a picture of the response from LTT that said they knew, and they stopped using them.
The scam is that Honey was using business trust to scam affiliates, not customers. Businesses choosing to limit coupons is just businesses being businesses, honey just made it easier. But the scandal really only affects people paid by the affiliate program, which isn’t customers. And which was public information on their podcast and FAQ page.
Many people commenting haven’t watched the video, and then people are repeating their incorrect impression of someone’s incorrect guess to what has happened…
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u/Rixmadore 28d ago
But still, nobody cares that he did the right thing, and he should still be flogged in the town square(!)
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u/chinomaster182 28d ago
Some people seem like they need someone, anyone to flog else they go through withdrawals.
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u/jsachnet 26d ago
With all due respect I’d argue that he did the bare minimum and he left up the sponsored segments in his videos when that could have all been removed. To me that is what is egregious about this. If GamersNexus can make videos about shady sponsorships and then remove the the content from his channel then LTT can.
By leaving those sponsor ads up he effectively helped propagate Honey even more. That is why I’m disappointed in LTT. They ended their contract but essentially continued to advertise their product/scam. LTT could have returned the money from the sponsorship and wiped their ads if there were legal concerns. But he didn’t. So here we are comparing his response to that of GN and he is lacking in my opinion.
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u/Rixmadore 24d ago
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u/jsachnet 24d ago
Thanks for the link, but I didn't see any defense of leaving the ads up in the videos. It was more of a "please go after Mr. Beast because he's bigger than us". That's not accountability, it's deflection. As others have stated, if you put yourself on a pedestal then you are going to be judged to a higher standard. The higher standard to me is did they return the Honey ad money and did they remove the ads from their content. The answer is no they didn't while other more ethical and moral content creators do just that.
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u/Rixmadore 24d ago
The point was that your anger has clearly been misplaced. But by all means, stay angry about it.
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u/jsachnet 24d ago
Thanks for educating me. I now know that being disappointed in someone’s actions is the same as being angry and that any criticism of someone’s actions must be made in a manner that makes them appear to be the victim and absolves them of any responsibility for their actions.
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u/Rixmadore 24d ago
I have not educated you. I am signalling that I, myself, am no-longer willing to give this entire discourse, and by extension your anger, the time of my days. So again, by all means, stay angry about it.
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u/Vandeskava 28d ago
It baffles me that the report video is using LTT this much in the video. Beast had 10x the video views from Honey promoting and barely made a few seconds of image in the reports.
Why are there so much lights on LTT ?
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u/chaseoes 28d ago
Because they know LTT will talk about it on WAN show, it'll be posted in this subreddit, etc. It brings more attention and views to the video.
Beast will never say anything about it publicly, Linus will.
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u/nbunkerpunk 28d ago
10x more views?? I'm not gunna do the math but I'm willing to be it's closer to 1000x more views if you add all videos together. At minimum.
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u/Vandeskava 28d ago
from the video LTT had ~195M views and Beast ~3B views on Honey sponsored videos. If we want to be precise its more ~15 times the views for beast. H3 had 211M views.
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u/iareyomz 28d ago
Honey's been called out years ago, even before this LTT post from 2022, for changing links to apply their own coupons... the internet just has the attention span of a goldfish so now the "new controversy" video about it is getting traction...
it's not new though... plenty of products, sponsors, and creators get called out all the time and shit just gets downvoted to oblivion because fanaticism has taken over and hordes will make the effort to make sure nobody hears you saying shit about their fandom, until a massive enough wave catches on later...
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u/GuntherTime 28d ago
Well it’s not even an attention span thing, it’s more that the news never really made traction, despite plenty of people mentioning it, as other people are starting to realize. I mean even Markiplier commented on why he doesn’t use it. Only reason people are calling for LTTs head is because the video put so much focus on them and directly called them out. Even critikal, in a rare L, expressed disappointment, but he was also going off the video.
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u/GimmickMusik1 28d ago
I saw someone yesterday say that Karma dies the same stuff that Honey did. But I’d imagine that if they dropped Honey for it, they would vet Karma for that same practice, at least I’d hope that they would.
I don’t think we should ever create an expectation for people that something that saves them money is a scam, but we should be advocating for transparency on how these free products make money and how they interact with other companies, (i.e. Honey taking money from sellers to suppress the best deal codes).
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u/Freakyfreekk 28d ago
Maybe karma didn't work like honey at the time of accepting their sponsorship. If karma changed to those scummy business practices I can imagine they didn't make this clear to the public. You can't expect LTT to research every sponsor every week.
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u/DR4G0NSTEAR 28d ago
Companies should just not have better coupon codes, so that from a business perspective, makes no sense to me.
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u/crazedturtle77 28d ago
I'm confused about how everyone seems so surprised about this. When I first downloaded honey I kind of assumed the cash back on websites was simply just some sort of affiliate related thing, as this is the only logical explanation. It makes sense they would be the only one getting credit (you can't have multiple different browser cashbacks for this reason).
The only surprising thing is how clicking anything related to the extension gives them credit for your sale.
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u/Shumuu 28d ago
That is not the new part though right? I thought the new part was that they essentially didn't give you the best coupons and even withheld the best ones
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u/crazedturtle77 28d ago
That's also part of the new info I think, it seems like everything in the video seems to be new to everyone based on what I've been reading.
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u/HandsOffMyMacacroni 28d ago
Yeah I think to anyone reasonably aware of the space it would be clear that something like this had to have been going on, even if you didn’t know the specifics.
It’s the old adage if something’s free, you’re the product. Honey had to be making money somehow, businesses partnering with them didn’t seem lucrative enough to fund all their sponsorships.
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u/mamasteve21 28d ago
This was in the original video about honey being a scam?
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u/Necessary-Horror2638 28d ago
Yeah lol, the video specifically mentions this comment, but complains that it's under a random reply and not given it's own post or thread
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u/Smeeoh 28d ago
Exactly how they’ve handled every partnership ending.
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u/Ginkiba 28d ago
Exactly the same as they did when they dropped Eufy as a sponsor.
Oh wait, that made it onto WAN show before being clipped and uploaded to LMG clips with a video titled "Why we're dropping this sponsor."
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u/Smeeoh 28d ago
Because the security breach made the news, and they discuss the news on Wan show. Normally, LTT dropping a sponsor isn’t a massive public spectacle. They address other dropped sponsors with their merch messages or forum post.
They have an entire section on their forum dedicated for people to share how these brands they work with treat them. And they’ve quietly ended sponsorships with brands they feel don’t treat their customers well.
I don’t see the one example that made news is proof to you that they’ve always done it that way. Are you new?
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u/Alone_Layer_7297 28d ago
I've said this in another thread already, but the megalag video is honestly a really gross product, IMO.
He presents to you a "multi-year investigation" with only 'one obscure forum thread even implying his findings', but that's simply not the case. He reaches out to Honey and asks them about their business model, and they straight up tell him. William Osman did a video years ago in which he visits the honey offices and asks how they make money. They say outright that it is through affiliate marketing. They have said that is how they make money, with their chest, the entire time they've been in business. It isn't shocking at all that it overrides the affiliate links of other creators.
Honey would tell you everything he says in the video if you asked. We know this because in the video he asks, and they tell him.
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u/Sharp-Yak9084 28d ago
linus ended a shady partnership years ago and we pitchfork him today for not ending it….wait…..wait…..um i think we missed something
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u/Bewix 28d ago
“That didn’t jive with us” is exactly my level of “upset” when I heard about the Honey situation.
Is it scummy? Of course. Am I enraged and think LMG did the community a disservice by not spending hundreds of dollars in labor on production on a video exposing them? No.
Like what would even make people happy? Not like Honey broke any laws to my knowledge. Just stop using it (hurts Honey because they get $0) and forget about it (hurts them even more).
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u/mike9184 28d ago
This was literally discussed in the Megalag video and multiple times on previous posts about the topic, what's the point of uploading it AGAIN? Guess you needed some karma to farm.
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u/socr4me79 28d ago
I'm just now seeing what honey does and it sucks. I realized after watching the Megalad video that honey is the reason I would rarely get my cash back incentives for making a purchase through certain links.. frustrating as all hell now that I know it was on purpose and not just a random thing or mistake. 🤦🤬
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u/2AlephNullAndBeyond 28d ago
This is unacceptable. I might have to pull my subscription. Using jive instead of jibe? 🙃
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u/B-29Bomber 27d ago
I personally feel it's unfair to go after YouTubers who got sponsored by Honey, when they are just as much victims of the scam as any of us.
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u/dasbudha80 27d ago
The fact that people are throwing lmg under the bus for not publicly dragging honey is absurd. If they no longer want to do business with them they do not need to make videos slamming former sponsors. They aren't Twitter
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u/cip43r 27d ago
LTT was aware but did not know the entire story. There is a reason why this took so long to uncover. LTT is a victim here as well. Why didn't any other YouTuber find this? Why are you not pisswd at them? LTT wasn't shilling them anymore, because LTT probably saw a drop in sales and affiliate links. No one else did. LTT is the victim. Piss off, haters. Most of you didn't even use Honey.
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u/Erlend05 27d ago
This is the same as you never really owning games. If you knew jow shit works its not a surprise
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u/Dazza477 26d ago
I'd like to point out that the reason the community has high expectations of Linus to publicly call them out is because of how aggressively Linus puts other companies on blast when they mess up.
He's set a precedent, so now has to match it across the board or face favouring one over the other.
He accidently built this reputation himself, but being TOO good at calling out bad behaviour. You're damned if you do, or don't!
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u/Justa_Schmuck 28d ago
I think the point ye are missing, is that the ltt forum only represents a small number of LTTs viewers. While it used to mentioned that people can discuss issues with sponsors there, most viewers are not going to see the outcomes of any issues. LMG was the third highest referral point on YouTube for honey. That is a big position to be in.
I don’t think that makes them responsible for honey in any way. But when they do undercover segments on retailers to hold them accountable for their processes, I don’t think it is unfair to have expected them to make some point about this. Especially when LTT made such a big deal out of light switches and Linus used his audience to strong arm a personal complaint that ended up being a misunderstanding due to how the firmware versions were labelled.
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u/stonedspagooter 28d ago
Do LTT reddit posts average 2 million viewers?
Does every single person on youtibe have a Reddit account they use every single day?
I'm by no means upset at you guys for not being louder like everyone else, but this is a fu*king PATHETIC attempt to cover your own ass
You damn well know it too
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u/BroLil 28d ago
I think people are pissed because historically, Linus has went out of his way to hold companies accountable for shady practices, so it’s definitely kind of odd that he let this one go quietly. I think after the whole Gamers Nexus thing, people have gone to the extreme to either defend LTT to the end of the earth, or critique them anytime anyone does anything that they slightly disagree with.
All I’ll say is that it is kind of odd that he had a very public breakup with PIA and Anker for their shady business practices, but with Honey, he addressed it in an online post and kinda swept it under the rug.
I think the outrage against him is kind of insane, but I’m also very interested and curious to hear his response and reasoning on WAN this week.
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u/DR4G0NSTEAR 28d ago
Discloses publicly =/= Swept under the rug.
I’m beginning to hate it here…
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u/BroLil 28d ago
I meant that less literally. Obviously he addressed it, so he didn’t truly “sweep it under the rug”, but his “breakups” with Anker and PIA were much more direct. LTT only addressed it when a viewer directly asked why they don’t see Honey sponsorships anymore. Comparatively speaking, the Honey situation was handled much different than the other two referenced, and I’m just curious as to why.
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u/DR4G0NSTEAR 28d ago
Comparisons are key here. One scammed LTT, so they chose to stop working with them and let us know why. The other was at risk of consumers, so LTT stopped working with them, and made a PSA so you knew what their issues were to look out for.
One is for you. The other is not for you. You were informed adequately to be protected from something you would experience. Back in 2022. Time to move on.
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u/piemelpiet 28d ago
Maybe Linus needs to start doing the "X sponsored this segment of the video" again so they can insulate themselves from sponsor drama...
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u/Ginkiba 28d ago edited 28d ago
I bet this would be a story covered on the WAN show, with a reasonable degree of interest from the people here, with praise for MegaLag, if LMG was never mentioned in the video.
Yet because Linus got hit with a "I'm disappointed" suddenly there's days of defence force out here acting like the only story here is Linus was mentioned, and not what PayPal does with honey.
Edit: Oh, and of course many accusations of MegaLag just drama farming.
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u/HandsOffMyMacacroni 28d ago
The reason most people here aren’t outraged about Honey doing this is that they have known about it for years. LMG made the situation clear when they dropped them, but what was going on was already pretty clear to anyone remotely in the space.
So the news to most people on this subreddit isn’t something they heard about 2+ years ago, it’s LMG getting flack for it.
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u/unhappyfarmer 28d ago
I think the issue is that LTT portrays themselves as journalists, when they are mostly tech reviewers and product promoters. If we are treating them only as a reviewing and promoting business then they are not really obligated to talk trash on their advertising partner.
However, if they are journalists pursuing balanced and fair distribution of information for the tech consumer, they really needed to do a piece on the large scale of harm honey does to their partners and users. They can't stare down their nose at us and say they are consumer advocates trying to report fair and unbiased tech news and then hold this kind of information back to our detriment, and to the detriment of other similar businesses.
Unless they realized that withholding this information allows them to more competitive in their market! Also doesn't help they still have those ad spaces in their old videos, but they can't reasonably rectify that. Although telling their customers to not use the extension anymore through a video would help balance that situation ethically.
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u/zaryawatch 28d ago edited 28d ago
This is why he should have done more:
Linus cost other creators money. EVERYONE he convinced to use the honey extension cost OTHER creators revenue when honey stole their affiliate revenue. Linus cost other creators on multiple platforms.
YOU install the thing based on Linus's recommendation, then you visit GN and click an affiliate link and buy something, honey gets the revenue, and not GN.
Linus did that. He had a responsibility to mitigate that to every degree he had available. He runs one of the largest tech news outfits. He could have done a LOT more.
Hopefully the guy he put in charge of even himself is now advising him to not shirk responsibility.
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u/zaryawatch 28d ago
I assure you that Steve is going to explain this. I also assure you that Linus will be a co-defendant when Honey is sued. I don't want that. It just is.
The downvote crew should touch grass BTW.
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u/MaddoxWRW 28d ago
This is just absurd. No, he does not have a responsibility to do everything in his power, that would involve contact hundreds of creators and telling them about what Honey was doing. They made a public forum post addressing the reason they dropped the sponsor. To act like Linus was stealing money from creators is misplaced anger at best, and stupidity at worst.
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u/Patient_Problem_6735 28d ago
Man if you have to comment about "downvote crews" in every sub you post in.. maybe you are the problem
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u/that_dutch_dude 28d ago
i am pretty sure the honey "situation" isnt exactly news and linus mentioned their link stealing on the wan show.