Honey. Ugh.
It looks like a helpful tool that finds coupon codes and saves you money at checkout. But behind the scenes, Honey inserts its affiliate codes into your purchase, earning a commission every time you buy, often without you realizing it.
The "deals" it finds are usually expired or ineffective, but it doesn't matter; they still get paid. Here's where it gets layered: influencers and creators also get paid to promote Honey. So when you click their link and install the extension, they earn a referral fee. Then, when you shop, Honey earns its cut.
One link, two commissions — none of it necessarily benefiting the consumer.
In some cases, the "deals" Honey applies aren't even the best ones available; they just serve to trigger the affiliate payout. It's a system designed to extract value at every step, where the platform, the extension, and the promoter all get paid, while you save a few cents and unknowingly fuel the machine.
So you're clicking away thinking those new Vans you wanted were discounted when all you did was sign up for a predatory email list, and now someone is sending you spam about election fraud from China.
A 2022 consumer survey by the Affiliate Marketing Transparency Report revealed that 71% of consumers were unaware they clicked on affiliate links when following product recommendations from creators they trust. Seems legit. Honey is pitched as a benevolent consumer tool, but it's a profit engine, now owned by PayPal ($4B acquisition).
Who Really Benefits — and Who Doesn't
You'll get paid if you're Mr. Beast because Jimmy Beast knows how to make a buck. The same goes for the cringe-master Paul Brothers and their Pokémon chains.
Everyone else? Fart noise.
The shadowy infrastructure of affiliate marketing creates a triple-bind that corrupts the entire ecosystem: consumers find themselves manipulated by overhyped products until trust inevitably collapses like a building hit by a Godzilla fight, small creators face the brutal calculus of compromising authenticity or falling behind financially, and through it all, the real winners are the intermediary platforms like Honey and ShopStyle that quietly extract commissions from every transaction regardless of product quality or consumer outcomes.
While creators agonize over maintaining credibility and shoppers navigate increasingly blurred promotional content, these affiliate clearinghouses operate with algorithmic indifference, profiting equally from successful and disappointing purchases, creating a system where neither honesty nor quality necessarily drives success.
If this sounds more like a pyramid scheme with better UX, that's because it kind of is.
Research published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology found that Gen Z consumers, in particular, feel a deep sense of betrayal when influencers they trust come off as inauthentic or overly controlled by brand partnerships. That betrayal doesn’t just hit the influencer—it spills over onto the brand itself, often leading to total disengagement. So yeah, when trust breaks, it’s not just bad vibes—it’s bad business.
As Dr. Maya Rodriguez, an ethics researcher at Stanford, notes, “We're witnessing the commodification of trust at an unprecedented scale. When audiences realize their parasocial relationships are being monetized without transparency, the damage extends beyond individual creators to erode faith in digital communities as a whole.”
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