this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
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244
MegaLag - The Honey Scam is Worse Than I Thought (www.youtube.com)
submitted 1 week ago by exu@feditown.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

TLDW: MegaLag found code and rules in the Honey extension that modifies behaviour specifically to make discovery of non-compliance with affiliate programs and affiliate poaching harder for testers. This behaviour has been in place since 2017 at least.

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[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's legit offputting, but when you're on YouTube it makes sense to play that game. Following a thumbnail meta will get your video more engagement, they even allow A/B testing of thumbnails to find the best performing one. YT is as much a thumbnail platform as it is a video one, and I'm only being slightly hyperbolic.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

Yeah I kind of roll my eyes at it, but I get it. People have to earn a living and feed themselves, and they can't do that without clicks.

And really, pulling a dumb face on a thumbnail is a hell of a lot more ethical in terms of driving engagement than some headlines you see that are so misleading they may as well be outright lies.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are also various browser extensions to show you an image from the middle of the video instead of a thumbnail. I personally prefer that.

[–] Nythos@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago

The hate for the thumbnail for this video I don’t get, but there is some REALLY egregious thumbnails on YouTube sometimes