Sticky Situation - Honey

If you have engaged with any Youtube video in the last eight years, there is a chance that you may have come across an ad for Honey. Not the sweet honey that you can find at your local farmers market, but the browser extension that finds coupons for you.

What is Honey?

In November of 2012, Honey was founded. It was a browser extension that you could download in a click. The extension would automatically scan the internet for coupon codes, which would then be automatically applied to whichever website you are shopping on.

Honey would explode in popularity from their marketing on Youtube. They would pay top creators like Mr. Beast, Marques Brownlee, Linus Tech Tips, and many more to include short ad segments in their videos to reach as many users on the platform as possible. Their ads would feature giveaways of luxurious items or money, which had attracted hundreds of thousands of potential users to their company. 

Their approach of marketing through top Youtube creators was insanely effective, as they had built a community of millions of users by offering what seemed like free savings at checkout. Their successful approach at their marketing had led to the company being bought by PayPal for 4 billion dollars.

Things Begin to Get Sticky

As of the 2020 PayPal deal, Honey seemed unstoppable. They had offered an accessible and free way for consumers to save more money online. As the company kept growing, some started to speculate how Honey had made their money. They offered a free service online, and seemed to have an infinite amount of money for advertising, but how were they making that money?

In December of 2024, a Youtuber by the name of MegaLag released a video on his investigation into the company, mainly centered around how the company made so much money. It was in this video where he revealed his discoveries on the deceptive methods the company used to generate their revenue.

Honey's main revenue stream came from affiliate revenue. They would receive a tiny percentage of commission whenever a user would purchase something using the web extension. Whenever a creator decided to partner with Honey for a video, they would receive an affiliate link. If a viewer were to use that affiliate link to use Honey, the creator with the link would part commission from that sale. 

It was discovered by MegaLag that Honey was hijacking the affiliate links, so they would get the commission from any affiliate sale, instead of the creator who partnered and promoted their company.

Once these founding were made public, the video instantly went viral. Around 20 million of Honey users had ditched the extension. Influencers and creators would go online and criticize the company, spreading the word of Honey's manipulation even farther. 

December 21, 2025 - Things Get Stickier

Although MegaLag's findings were huge, enough for Google to update their policies on Chrome extensions to tighten rules and security around affiliate links, he still was not finished. He would release a part two to his original Honey video, where he would expose Honey's system even further.

He would explain in the video how Honey was collecting and sharing coupon information from merchants without their consent. They would add these merchants to their extensions without permission. MegaLag had explained the harm of this pretty well in his video, but let me help you relate to this. 

Imagine you had a coupon code on your website for just employees or friends. Honey would collect your site data, and offer these coupons to new users on your website, without you ever knowing.

This most recent exposing had led to Rakuten, a massive online cash back company, to remove Honey completely from all of their networks. Earlier lawsuits that creators and companies had filed at the start of the allegations were dismissed, but Plaintiffs have refiled following the most recent foundings. The most recent founding were reflected on Honey's platform, as they are estimated to have lost around 8 million users since December 21st. 

Honey had painted themselves as a consumer friendly tool, where everyone wins. Honey had amazing marketing, and sabotaged themselves through greed for more money. This situation has shown that their is no real situation where everyone truly wins, and is a great example of the internet coming together to fight this greed.