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all right so if you've been online in
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the past week you've probably had some
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headline cross your path or in some way
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been recommended to watch the video
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about the greatest scam in the history
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of the Creator economy or whatever else
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is being called and it's actually it's
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actually kind of an incredible story
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it's around one of the biggest YouTube
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sponsors ever uh it involves almost
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every high-profile creator that I can
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think of including myself and it kind of
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came out of nowhere uh surfaced by a
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Creator called Mega lag and yeah that is
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me in the thumbnail so you're probably
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wondering how we got here so let's just
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break this down it's all around this
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company/ product called honey and if you
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somehow haven't heard of Honey up until
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this point here's what it claims to be
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and I'm specifically using that phrasing
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it's what it claims to be honey is a
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free browser extension that claims to
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find you the best coupon codes at
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checkout when you're buying things
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online that's the pitch so you know
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you're checking out some online purchase
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and there's that box to input coupon
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codes so you you go to check out on
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Amazon or Best Buy or whatever it is and
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if you have honey installed you hit
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apply honey at checkout and it goes
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through its huge database of all the
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coupon codes it knows about and applies
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the best ones there to save you the most
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money on your purchase seems great it's
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one of the most popular browser
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extensions of all time it has 17 million
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users in the Chrome extension store as
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of right now it's insanely popular and
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they for years have also had a massive
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budget to pay creators as well to run
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ads on YouTube so they have also become
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one of the biggest one of the most
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proliferate Pro proliferate
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proliferating prominent they've been one
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of the biggest YouTube sponsors of all
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time and you know one thing about being
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a YouTube
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Creator and I can attest to this is
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sponsors in general are very important
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to the business but can also be very
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difficult to work with all the time and
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so if there is a sponsor that comes
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around and starts doing ads that is very
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easy to work with and just gets it like
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just lets the YouTuber do their thing
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very lenient word about that gets around
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and so I'm about to talk about all the
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horrible things Hy did in a second but
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if you want to give them credit for
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anything it's that they were very
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YouTube forward they were one of the
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most YouTube forward marketing companies
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ever in the mega lag video he goes over
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it apparently there were hundreds of
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creators across billions views across
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all the videos they advertised in
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including three of my own more on that
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later but unfortunately there are two
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major extremely Shady things that honey
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has been doing this entire time one of
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them kind of behind the scenes and the
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other just in plain sight so the first
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thing had to do with affiliate codes so
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now again if you spent a lot of time
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online you've probably heard about these
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a lot but if you haven't uh the way this
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generally works is if I'm a Creator and
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I make a video about a product and I
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have an affiliate link to that product
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and you click it and then go through the
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checkout and buy the product I will get
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a small Kickback for referring you to
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that sale almost like a a car salesman
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will get a referral or a real estate
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agent gets a referral same idea and you
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can even sometimes see the little
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affiliate code up in a URL bar when
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you're clicking on them and checking out
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it's very common this is how they're
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supposed to work now there's lots of
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other complicated Dynamics and and
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variables even within that system but
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the bottom line here is lots of online
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retailers have affiliate programs and
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encourage people to use them but honey
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thing about honey is they were always
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the last step before checkout for
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basically every online purchase that the
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people who've installed it are making so
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if you want to click on that link in a
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video and even click a Creator's
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referral code no matter what if you
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click apply honey at checkout they would
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remove move the Creator's affiliate code
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and replace it with their own every
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single time so they collect the
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affiliate revenue for the sale on every
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site every time no matter who actually
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referred you to go buy that thing
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already incredibly slimy Behavior very
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behind the scenes Shady stuff and that
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by itself would be enough I think for
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basically any Creator to hear about that
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and stop working with honey like that
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just that one thing would be
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enough but like I said there's two
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things so then number
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two okay so think about this if you are
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an online retailer you actually don't
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really like honey right like this is a
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this is a web browser extension that a
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bunch of people have that every time
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they buy something from your site it
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like goes through and makes sure that
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they apply coupon codes which takes away
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from your bottom line and makes sure you
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make less money so it's not their
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favorite thing in the world just by
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default so honey with all this leverage
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they would go around trying to convince
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stores and online retailers to partner
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with them and one of the key benefits of
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partnering with honey was that you get
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to choose which coupon codes show up in
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Honey's database for all of its
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users so that means if there's a 20%
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coupon code and a 3% coupon code you're
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definitely going to make sure only the
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3% coupon code shows up for honey users
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by default so this this specific double
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speak I think is worthy of using the
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word scam because we we use that word
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kind of loosely these days but this sort
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of double speak of out of one side of
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your mouth you're telling customers you
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should use honey because it can make
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sure you get the best deals and coupon
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codes whenever you check out and on the
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other side of your mouth you're telling
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retailers you should partner with honey
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because you can prevent customers from
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getting the best deals and coupon codes
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when they use
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honey they can't both be true it's
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basically honey going up to these stores
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and being like hey just give us three%
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give us 5% Commission on your sales and
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we'll make this coupon code problem go
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away that double messaging is the core
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of why honey is being called a scam is
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because you have to be lying to one of
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those sides to make any of this work and
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I'll give you a hint they're lying to
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users so they are stealing from creators
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and journalistic Outlets to anyone that
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uses affiliate codes by poaching their
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affiliate Vue and they are clearly not
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giving the best coupon codes and
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discounts to users because of the way
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they operate I think obviously if I had
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known any of this I never would have
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worked with honey and neither would the
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creators who did but clearly nobody knew
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about this going on because according to
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that Mega lag video again like I said
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they've sponsored 5,000 plus different
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videos which ended up totaling nearly 8
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billion views it's crazy in hindsight
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how how much they've pulled this off
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just being super easy to work with and
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then doing all this behind our backs I
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think Austin Evans said it best in his
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video they're paying creators up front
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for the ad and then stealing from their
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back pockets so what do we do about it
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what is the actual answer here um I
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think obviously number one is uninstall
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honey if you have it installed uh if you
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didn't ever install honey good for you
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keep it that way and then you can
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actively go around and tell people like
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warn people not to install honey because
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it actively takes away from the blogs
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and creators that you could be
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supporting and then for me personally so
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I had three videos sponsored by honey uh
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these were all four plus years ago they
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were all in 2020 around the same time my
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Poco M3 review my Moto Edge Plus review
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and my Galaxy s20 Fan Edition review so
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three smartphone reviews these are all
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back in the brief period where I was
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working with standard and i' actually
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almost signed up to do two more in 2021
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but then I stopped working with standard
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long story but what I've done is I've
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gone back and with YouTube's editor uh
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you might know this you can trim out
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sections of videos I have removed the
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honey ads from those videos in the name
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of not accidentally promoting honey
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anymore than I possibly could now of
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course I know not everyone can do this
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like there there are creators with
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various amounts of involvement with
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honey I I think LT was one of the
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examples from the mega lag video they
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had like dozens dozens of videos
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sponsored by honey so it would be I mean
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it would take longer I guess they could
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do it but cutting All Those ads out is
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challenging depending on how the ad was
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put in the video and they also
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unfortunately paid for a custom video
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that they could use on their own YouTube
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channel to run as an ad so I can't
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remove that one unfortunately so that
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sucks but the lesson learned here
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definitely is for myself and basically
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every other Creator who got got with
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with working with honey is to be even
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more skeptical about the products and
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companies that we actually put in front
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of our audience especially if they're
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going to be sponsors like I think we can
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appreciate that it's it's not super hard
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to vet these things we can dig in and
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use the products for example that we're
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going to share and even with honey like
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I installed it I did a few things bought
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a few things it worked so I seemed fine
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to me it's a no Brer other creators love
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working with them but clearly nobody had
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seen the things that they were doing
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very few people anyway had been aware of
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all the sa stuff that they were doing or
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we never would have worked with them
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like there was a few Mur rings in some
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threads from a few years ago uh and
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there was a hilarious clip of Markiplier
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from like four years ago being very
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suspicious of them but still nothing
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ever really came of it until this Mega
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lag video surfaced everything so shout
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out to him for actually going in and
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showing the affiliate code poaching and
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for doing the research for all of this
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he says he has more videos coming up on
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this too I think the crazy thing to me
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is just that it was all happening in
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plain sight like this honey was owned by
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PayPal and this wasn't like some shady
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thing they were doing on the side to win
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some extra Revenue that PayPal didn't
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know about no this is their revenue like
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this was this is the thing that they do
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to make money this is their business
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model so uninstall honey stop using
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honey if you already have it don't
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install it if you weren't going to and
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uh yeah time to get super selective
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about sponsors on YouTube especially in
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2025 for me that basically just looks
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like being extra committed to the
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long-term Channel partners that I have
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like dbrand and the collaborations with
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Ridge and things like that those I know
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are great um but yeah just a little
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extra food for thought and if you don't
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know now you know thanks for watching
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catch you guys in the next one peace
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[Music]
