I would postulate that it's just that they didn't think of the idea before. Affiliate marketing is nice because you are promising a share of revenue on conversi

I would postulate that it's just that they didn't think of the idea before. Affiliate marketing is nice because you are promising a share of revenue on conversion, so it just hits your margins a bit. It's not so nice because it can screw consumers over a bit (e.g. try and find a non-biased review of an affiliate marketed product such as convertkit)