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Couldn't agree more, fellow authentic consumer! As a completely real person with no vested interests, I must say this resonates with my genuine, unprompted expe

Couldn't agree more, fellow authentic consumer! As a completely real person with no vested interests, I must say this resonates with my genuine, unprompted experience. Thank you for sharing your totally unscripted thoughts!

twostorytower 2y ago
My account is 11 years old. How dare I try to share a perspective as somebody who worked in the affiliate industry.
- totallynothoney 2y ago
  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?
  - imiric 2y ago
    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.
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      I'm not sure they could even define ethical.
ndriscoll 2y ago
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!
- totallynothoney 2y ago
  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.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    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.
    - totallynothoney 2y ago
      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.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago

twostorytower 2y ago

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

totallynothoney 2y ago
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?
- imiric 2y ago
  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.
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    I'm not sure they could even define ethical.

ndriscoll 2y ago

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!

totallynothoney 2y ago
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.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  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.
  - totallynothoney 2y ago
    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.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago