🖕 Fuck PayPal
And fuck Linus Tech Tips for intentionally keeping quiet about this after they found out.
If something advertises on youtube it’s a scam. Simple to remember really.
Ltt didn’t hide shit, they posted it on a public forum
Yeah, that not nothing but it isn’t far off. They have a massive platform. It deserved at least a video telling people about it.
Honestly I thought all of this was common knowledge at this point, back when I used Honey (many years ago) I saw its affiliate code in the address bar and thought “huh, that’s how they make money”
Linus Tech Tips really is scum. Yet more proof of that.
It was a matter of time until the public found out about this. They couldn’t think in the long term, by not accepting a bit of backlash, exposing the scam they unknowingly participated in they only opened themselves up for more later.
They are not only evil, they are stupid too, which is worse.
I have been using PayPal increasingly for online payments. Not sure why. I have heard old stories about PayPal but Honey seems really bad. Its basically a given that any fintech company are going to be dodgy scammers but PayPal seemed almost grown up and respectable. Guess not.
I use Klarna for basically everything I buy. I should probably reevaluate that. But I’ve had no issues so far. It notifies me when my payments are due. Helps me collect the sum of what I owe each month, each week. Helps me group payments to pay similar/connected things simultaneously, categorize purchases, etc, etc.
I really hope there’s nothing dodgy going on there. But at least I’m not giving them interest on anything I buy. Always make sure I’m paying my stuff on time, and no postponed payments.
I’m guessing their business model is to exploit people who have issues paying on time and to collect interest and late fees, as well as receive convenience fees from stores implementing Klarna as a payment option.
Oh you naive child
I thought it was just collecting and selling user data but while I’d bet it’s still happening - wow, this is way craftier.
A useful question to ask when hearing about a new company is “What’s your business model?”
There is no such thing as a free and benevolent product with an advertising budget.
Real as shit. I know idiots who think apple pays people scaling on how many downloads their app has xD (kinda like yt views)
I used honey for a while and it was working great for me with “exclusive” coupons and Cashback and then one time I bough a cellphone that was supposed to have $250 cashback. I did all the necessary steps, read the t&c, took screenshots of the offer and made the purchase. I never got the transaction to appear on their website. Sending emails it trying to contact them was futile (I even made an automatic script to send an email everyday to follow up). Fuck PayPal
Small claims
I said it in another post: if you see a bunch of influencers all suddenly peddling the same stuff, stay away. All of them can be bought.
Or, just don’t trust ads period
Do your own research
Okay, all of these customer reviews loved this product!
Weird how formulaic they sounded though.
Especially anything from Linus, they’re a very scummy group.
But I really enjoy watching Techlinked :(
Am I the only one who, upon seeing his videos for the first time, immediately thought he was an annoying little pinhead?
Like, I’ve watched his channel(s) surge in popularity over the years, and this entire time I’ve just been wondering why, and the issues that have come out about his little empire since have only confirmed my initial prejudice.
Because of his name, I thought he was a pro-Linux channel. I was swiftly disappointed.
They event have the stupid thumbnail stereotype
Soviet Womble expressed the feeling I have against channels like that very nicely: 7:56, in case link with timer doesn’t work
I got that creepy feeling from him the first time I saw a video of him. Every photo of him I saw set off alarms. I’ve also never understood why anyone even likes the guy.
This was years before all the issues came to light.
Their entire video is an ad filled experience of shilling not only their sponsors but themselves. Incredibly obnoxious and cramming in every YouTube stereotype from begging for likes and subs to clickbait titles and then insisting they have to do it so they can have their cake and eat it makes them even more obnoxious than if they just did it without wanting to be forgiven for it.
It’s getting worse, I can’t remember who but I was watching a video just the other day and their ad segment was the fucking ltt ratchet driver. You know, the one they supposedly made because they were tired of the market and the low quality rip-offs all the companies were just trying to make profit off of (it’s a shitty plastic screwdriver for 70$, link to pic and it’s being sold at fucking walmart now). They sold it as such a heart string story in the beginning, it’s just another mini-wannabe corporation.
I don’t particularly feel bad at this point for their continued reputation downfall and the people responsible. Everyone has their own personal story of their favorite company which has turned to complete shit (Blizzard is one of mine). They didn’t come out strong but doubled down corporate style when everything started. That’s fine, but anyone staying and putting up with the stressful workplace knows what they’ve gotten themselves into.
Especially anything from NullDrive, they’re a very scummy group.
I have a built-in spidey sense that hates any product that gets peddled simultaneously by a bunch of YouTubers.
They removed for corpos, that’s who pays them
Some do good work but got to assume they are an enemy until proven otherwise.
I never trusted Honey to begin with but this goes far deeper than I ever expected. I always wondered “yeah, but where do they get their money?” I always figured it was just a way to take people’s data and sell it to data brokers (which they probably also do, let’s be honest) but this is just blatant fraud. Stealing affiliate money from links and having companies pay them to purposefully give out worse coupon codes is just devious through and through. It’s basically free money and everybody else, whether influencer or consumer, get fucked over in the process.
Yeah I always wondered what the catch was? The CEO was always posting on Reddit trying to defend honey and how cool they were.
Either way, I never trust any shopping deal plugins. The whole idea of them is sketchy.
I use this extension to get a general idea of whether a product usually goes for cheaper and whether or not to wait. Really conveniently on the Amazon page directly.
Also pcpartpicker to track pc parts. Isthereanydeals for game prices.
Only shopping plugin I use is the one that comes with Edge. Surprisingly good to track price history and find other sites selling the product. I considered some Chrome plugin that displays an Amazon product’s country of origin to avoid Chinesium but apparently it didn’t work well or something like that from reading the reviews. Had some attached rewards function for shopping with it, ick.
It’s funny how Edge got lambasted for it when they introduced that feature, but it’s legitimately super helpful and non-invasive.
I always assumed it was a combination of your guess and companies giving Honey special coupon codes so consumers are more eager to spend.
“Hey Honey, we’ll give you 1% commission if you just host this HONEY5 coupon for 5% off.”
That was my impression when I used it once. Wasn’t worth having an extension just for a slight discount. Love when a company doesn’t fulfill the service they advertise.
But that would be an ethical business model, we can’t have that, this is PayPal and this is the internet. There’s no place for ethics in that combination.
Same. I never downloaded it or anything like it but I didn’t realize they were playing both sides. It’s fucked.
everybody else, whether influencer or consumer, get fucked over in the process.
Enshittification correctly defined.
PayPal is not customer friendly, they also straight up steal funds by locking your account
Yeah, it’s wild how close PayPal came to killing Minecraft early on by locking all of Notch’s money as soon as MC started to take off.
PayPal is not a bank. Your funds are NOT FDIC insured, no matter what their docs say.
In certain countries they fall under quasi-bank regulations eg. “PayPal Australia Pty Ltd (PayPal) is a limited Authorised Deposit-Taking Institution (ADI) with authority to provide purchased payment facilities (PPFs).”
That gives some measure of protection on how they handle your funds, but holy shit I would not keep any money in a PayPal account for any longer than absolutely necessary. I use it as a convenient intermediary between my actual card and sellers, no more than that.
Yep, happened to me. They’re evil. They own Venmo too btw.
So glad that eBay (as greedy as they are) started handling transactions instead of everyone using PayPal.
PayPal is a class corpo parasite. They tax us
What to expect from the Musky one and the Vampire?
If you’re sitting at a poker table and you can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.
Alternately, if you look at an online service and can’t tell what the product is, It’s you.
And even if you can tell what the product is, it‘s still often you. “Premium” subscriptions for example might hide (some) ads, but services still collect as much data about you. Even grocery stores where the offer seems obvious are trying to bait you into installing their apps to collect data on top of charging you for every item. And sure it’s not relevant in this case, but it’s something we should never forget.
By that logic, linux users are the product.
Linux is neither an online service, nor a business at all.
Yeah, I feel like that’s usually a very accurate saying, but it doesn’t really work with a lot of open source projects.
I hate that you’re getting downvoted by so many people who don’t realize you’re pointing out an exception to the rule, and instead think you have some fundamental misunderstanding about how Linux works.
It’s difficult for others to take advantage of you when you can learn what the software actually does and have it modified to work another way.
Linux (for the most part) is open source but I’d argue the inclusion of any proprietary software/firmware/drivers means something ultimately isn’t.
They are getting downvoted for misconstruing something that is clearly a rule about profit making services and applying it to crowd sourced non-profit open source projects.
Truly open source projects don’t have suckers.
misconstruing something that is clearly a rule about profit making services
To be honest I don’t think that’s clear at all, it feels like it’s more a rule about being skeptical of free stuff online. And many for profit companies have open source projects that can be used safely even though the source is a for-profit.
No? The OS is the product.
I think the issue was with the original commenter’s phrasing. Facebook looks like a product. But the commenter meant “How the product is being funded”.
Of course, it gets hard when there’s multiple sources of revenue. You used to be able to spot ads and come to the conclusion that that was everything. Now an ad is just the tip of the iceberg.
Except Linux has proper legal underpinnings that anyone with a few brain cells can verify.
You can compile your own code too
Hence why people always say do your diligence
I mean, yes?
The key difference is linux wants you to help make it better. Something like Honey steals your data, and steals money from others, and then wants you to make it better.
At this point, anything these goons “influencers” try to sell me on is a scam, and I’ll avoid it at all costs. People do insane things for money. Just watched a coffeezilla video on the CSGO gambling scam and holy shit, people are straight up heartless and have no humanity in them.
I respect coffee but he said nice things about MrBeast who is known to hire pedophiles and sexual pests
Bro just released a video investigating Mr beast. Lol
Pretty sure this was already posted yesterday when it came out. Or it might have been a different community.
Watching the full video is important though because they are scamming the consumer too, not just “”“influencers”“”. Someone made a great comment about how it’s just one greedy troll stealing from another and has no effect on the consumer since they still save money but Honey not actually giving you the best coupons on purpose is next level dickholery.
Lying about the coupons really should be the focus so people stop harming themselves using Honey.
It’s also kind of a protection racket against shops. “Partner with us or we’ll cut into your profits by spreading cheap coupon codes, but partner with us and we’ll protect you”
I never use affiliate links AND I don’t bother looking for coupons (let’s be honest, who does?) so I don’t give a crap, every now and then I’m saving money without taking it from anyone 🤷
idk, I find the coupon thing to be super easy. Just takes one search and maybe two clicks if you have ad blockers on. Mostly the only time is if I’m ordering something like pizza for a get together where no special applies. There’s a local chain in my state that had a coupon code for half off my order that wasn’t listed on their site (they might’ve given it to me if I called but who knows). Been using that for the past year and it allows me to convince everyone to go there instead of a national chain. I’ve also been lucky with some manufacturers coupons for products I’m ordering straight from them, it’s more rare though so it’s hit or miss sometimes.
I just look up price trends and that’s pretty much it for me too. Coupons rarely ever worked for me in the early days of e-commerce so I quickly stopped bothering.
See, I’m torn. I’ve never used honey, so I was never scammed. However I do think them scamming consumers is awful.
Buuuuuuuut, I DO enjoy the fact that they scammed influencers.
Yeah I thought that too until seeing the bits about consumers getting shafted. Awful company, hope they get sued into bankruptcy.
They are owned by PayPal, so that seems unlikely
