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.

  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    29·
    4 days ago

    I’m resisting my inner Lemmy user desire to shit on this for its thumbnail, but this is a great video, people should know about this. What Honey did is fucked up.

    • AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.worldEnglish
      29·
      4 days ago

      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.worldEnglish
        11·
        4 days 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.comEnglish
        8·
        4 days ago

        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.worksEnglish
          4·
          4 days ago

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

    • Deceptichum@quokk.auEnglish
      4·
      4 days ago

      I really don’t get the thumbnail hate. It’s something you look at for a second, like a books cover. It’s so irrelevant yet people get hell bent hung up on it.

      • 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        4 days ago

        It’s more of a problem for the younger audience. It’s the gateway for awful cringe shit kids do. All the rise in right wing incel behaviour, online celebrity worship, falling for dubious scams didn’t come out of nowhere.

        If you have been around kids using YouTube, they absolutely go for the most outrageous thumbnails, despite being awful video content.

        Encouraging that behaviour is just letting things go to shit just because it’s