Honey Browser Extension Owned by Paypal Faces Heavy Criticism

Many years ago, I used to be part of the Frugal community. That’s the people who are looking for ways to save money whenever they shopped both online and offline. In fact, Extreme Couponing was one of my favorite shows. All that money being saved with just coupon clippings was amazing. I did try it for a bit before I left the United States (for those who may not have traveled internationally, coupons isn’t really widely used in other countries).

Discount codes in online shopping

The internet is everywhere though and discount codes can be used to lower prices on certain goods and services if one has a code or knows where to find them.

 

 

 

Enter discount code websites. There were and still are many sites that uses discount codes for products and services. The site owners make money every time their discount code is used.

To make things easier, sites like Honey popped up. Honey, in particular, claimed to look all over the internet to find the best discount deals for its users. Many frugal blogs, websites, forums, facebook groups, and subreddit had, at one point or another, promoted Honey as the place to find good discounts for the product or services people might need (If I’m not mistaken, RetailMeNot, CamelCamelCamel are some of the other sites I have used in the past).

Why did I stop using Honey?

I admit that I did use Honey a few times. The last time I had used the extension was maybe about 3 years ago or so. I remember I needed to make a purchase using a virtual card before that card expired. I didn’t want to add more money to it. Just wanted to use up all the funds and be done with it. I found something I wanted to purchase, went to Honey to see if I could get a discount code and, if I remember correctly, Honey found a discount code for 10% off. That was good but I needed a higher discount so that I could get rid of all the money on my virtual card and the item I wanted was still too expensive.

So I decided to go looking on Google for a better deal. I found a code on a subreddit for 30% for first time users of the item I wanted to purchase. It was at that time I realized I was better off looking online for discount codes or asking people online if they had one I could use.

After that, I decided to move away from these discount extensions.

 

 

Enter Megalag’s video in December 2024

Since I haven’t used the Honey extension for some time now, I completely forgot about it until Magalag’s video popped up in my recommends on YouTube. At first, I really wasn’t going to click on it because I no longer deal with Honey but after some time, I decided to check out his video.

Hell, I wasn’t even planning on watching the whole thing. Just the first 5 to 10 minutes of it but Megalag didn’t bother to sugarcoat anything and jumped right into the issue. IMO, the video appears to be well researched, well presented, and he seemed to be well informed.

What is the gist of Megalag’s video and why is it important?

 

According to what Megalag’s video:

1. Honey is stealing the affiliate money that supposed to go to content creators. Anyone who uses honey after clicking on a content creator’s affiliate/referral link, Honey secretly changes the link to their own affiliated/referral links without telling the visitors.
2. Paypal Honey also doesn’t provide users with the best discount codes.
3. Shady practices must be earning Paypal millions (allegedly) of dollars per year.

Please please please watch Megalag’s video. It’s very insightful. Allegedly, he’ll be putting out a part two soon.