This but unironically. Why would an authentic consumer care whether the right shill gets paid, and be upset that instead some other party does and they get a discount or cash back?

Do all of the upset people work in ads or ad-adjacent industries or something? Are the "influencers" (i.e. propagandists) trying to manufacture outrage and make it seem like normal people care? Please think of the spammers!

I consider myself pretty normal, and I care, just because... I dunno, I appreciate honesty? Especially in our modern world where it increasingly feels like every individual person and every company is out to fuck every other person/company for every last nickel and dime they can manage? And like, this is pretty scummy. If I get sent towards a given product because someone I follow recommends it, yeah I want that person getting their pay for that. I don't give a shit how little it is. They were approached or they approached this company, offered to rep the product, did the work and showed it, and clearly they did a good job, because I watched it and used their link.

Like I don't particularly like sponsored segments, but I know why they exist: because ad revenue on YouTube is fickle and pretty shit, and I enjoy the creators I follow and want them to keep making stuff, and making stuff costs some combo of time and money. So yes, I want the creator to get that.

I think most normal people would vibe on this train of logic. I don't view and never have viewed business, including my own, as a cutthroat competition between me and everyone else. I view it as mutuality of purpose. I offer my work, and people who need stuff done that I can do, give me money. I think if the broader markets had an attitude like that instead of chasing every last penny at every single intersection, then we'd live in a better world.

A paid "recommendation" is dishonest to begin with, and is taking advantage of misplaced trust/parasocial relationships. An honest relationship would involve asking viewers/readers/listeners to support them directly.

I offer my work for money. I don't work for free and tell clients "hey you should support me by using AWS (who will give me kickbacks) for your infrastructure." The conflict of interest is fundamental to such an arrangement, even if disclosed. Instead my employer pays me for my expertise and I do my best to give them my honest, unbiased experience/opinions/analysis. I'm explicit about the boundaries of my knowledge/experience.

Case in point: these "influencers" obviously did not do any due diligence on what this program was doing. They "recommended" something they didn't understand because they were paid to do so. If this were "merely" stealing user information (the monetization method someone else in the thread said they assumed), would there be controversy? What exactly did the people who recommended this thing think it was going to do to the people who installed it? That's the actual story here (though it should be unsurprising).

The problem is that beyond stealing the affiliate rev, which might matter if you actually like the person (like project farm for me), Honey is in bed with merchants and will give negligible discounts or nothing depending what the store wishes. The whole "scrapping the internet for coupons" is practically speaking a lie. Also even if you don't give a shit, reduced affiliate revenue means that creators are more likely to sponsor in-video, which is annoying if you don't know about sponsor block.

For me is mostly the same the disgust when I discovered that hyperparasitoid wasps exist.

Obviously the correct solution is to spread the word about ublock and sponsorblock (and perhaps adnauseum) too. Help contribute to a better society by making advertising a less viable way to make money. If something is worth paying for, pay for it. Push the incentives toward honest practices. Don't white knight when shills play themselves.

Well, 95% of people on HN know about uBlock Origin and Sponsorblock, so why are you telling me to preach to the choir instead of saying my original point? I was making fun of how GP sounds exactly like a PR person, not saying that affiliate marketing is good for society. Even if you're a hardliner against advertising, you can recognize that not literally everyone is a shill (e.g., most metric-based reviewers). And even if it's harmful at a societal level that some random YouTuber discussing a movie also shills dropshipped razors, you wouldn't say that mugging them is actually good.

It's like crypto - it's environmentally harmful and facilitates ransomware with minimal benefits, but I wouldn't be okay with someone showing up in the comments saying it's totally fine to steal someone's shitcoins with malware (though laughing about it is fine). It seems that you wanted to make a point about the post itself and used my comment as a launching point, which is fine, but don't accuse me of white knighting.

Edit: Forgot to check my writing.

My account is 11 years old. How dare I try to share a perspective as somebody who worked in the affiliate industry.

Your behavior in this thread is spammy and your perspective boils down to "everyone in the industry ratfucks creators, so the video is ragebait". Why do you feel compelled to defend clearly unethical behavior?

This is a forum run by a Silicon Valley VC firm, frequented by tech entrepreneurs. Ethical behavior is not high on their list of priorities.

I'm not sure they could even define ethical.