Rakuten is basically a scam on merchants right? By that I means they use affiliate links to make money. But most of their referred traffic comes from people c

Rakuten is basically a scam on merchants right? By that I means they use affiliate links to make money. But most of their referred traffic comes from people checking out and saying "I use rakuten to get a discount at the places I already shop". The stores then don't know how much business rakuten is really bringing them, so are scared to stop it. Consumers keep checking rakuten to see if they get discounts on things they want, because why not? Is this a good summary? Anyone have a more favorable impression of their work (from the store perspective)?