A LTT Browser Extension

[WhoTookMyThisGuyUsername]

I got this idea after watching the whole Honey debacle, but basically, what if LTT decided to create it's own browser extension that would be able to insert it's own affiliate links at checkout, but unlike Honey, they could do it ethically. The extension would track LTT videos that they watched and then at the time of purchase, see if a user had previously watched an LTT video with that product in the video and then the extension could show a pop-up to ask the user if they want to apply the LTT affiliate link and then the affiliate link will will also give the user the affiliate discount at that time, a simple but effective win-win.

As an extension dev myself, that would all be pretty simple to implement. Some other features that could be added later could include helping the user's pick out parts for their computer, by showing the user's performance metrics of the parts while shopping, leveraging the performance tests done by LTT. The extension could also get really interesting by adding extra features to a video, like mid-video polls or even games or even choose-your-own-adventure videos

[Millios]

You have your heart in the right place but you just wanna "fix" a problem that doesnt exist or anyone has

Affiliate links already are there by just going in the video description OR they outright say "Hey this product is available/ready for preorder in our website/via our sponsor. Link in description or search LTTstore.com or Sponsor.com/linus or smt of the sort"

 

Why also add a "suggest parts for build" when a) you can ask here or other forums or check reviews and build guides for advice + different countries have different prices and availabilities so some parts arent good or other parts are better for their prices b)you can check benchmarks for specific combos of CPU and GPU and see which fits your budget. Nevermind how results can vary cause a) not all CPUs are 100% the same and can differ in performances but a few percent points or a bit more, b)internet connection and servers can affect experience in games and there is a whole bunch of variables that you cant account for and not truly combat.

Thats why benchmarks are a "it should be close to or around this in ideal conditions" not a "If it isnt 100% like this you have a problem"

 

The "extra video features" is also pointless cause a) yt allows poles to be made and the creator can say "after this video is live in the community tab there will be a pole" b) choose-your-own-adventure vids are already a thing they work perfectly fine as shown by ppl like markiplier and they dont really fit in the type of content LTT makes

[LogicalDrm]

There have been extensions doing just that. Well, they were to have notification popups, but most modern desktop and mobile browsers already do that, so there's no need for such. None of them exist or is maintained, hasn't been for years.

 

At one point forums themselves had script that would inject affiliate links to mainly Amazon links from forum. IIRC that was removed because of issues it had with linking.

 

Because of vast ocean of both mobile and desktop browsers (though most are Chromium based), maintaining any extension would need to have similar force behind it as with Floatplane app support. So not much profit over costs.

[Taz900]

I think if they did, it will me more problems for them.

They talked about the honey issue twice on WAN and even though they said they only found out as other creators told them, they are still getting blamed for it and being seen as just money grabbing.

 

If they did do an extension it will just seem like Linus is just trying to do a money grab and if something goes wrong, it will just create more issues for them.

[TetraSky]

The last thing I want is for an extension to keep history on what videos I have watched, all to give money to someone who isn't me.

26 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Gawd. I smell soo much GPT from that

100%. Reported it.

[Poinkachu]

1 minute ago, TetraSky said:

The last thing I want is for an extension to keep history on what videos I have watched, all to give money to someone who isn't me.

100%. Reported it.

yeah, I edited my post earlier.
And reported too because it might be a bot spam masked as a genuine (Full LLM-ed) reply, cuz of the only link in the post

[WhoTookMyThisGuyUsername]

The biggest issue with affiliate links, IMO, is getting viewers to actually click on the affiliate link. It's a much bigger hurdle to overcome than it sounds. My concept extension removes the need to click on the affiliate links, because the extension would keep track of that for you. And if you saw a video in the past and forgot which one it was the user is then required to go back, find the video, then click on the link. How many people would care enough to do that? I rarely do that and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

11 hours ago, Millios said:

Why also add a "suggest parts for build"

I was envisioning something like, if a user goes to Amazon and is looking at a CPU, there could be an extra button or score that gets added under the product name that when clicked on or hovered over will show maybe a graph of how it stacks up to other similar CPUs based on benchmarks done by LTT. It could even suggest a better part for the same price, but that would be a bit more tricky, because you would need integration with retailers to get their prices, doable, but maybe not worth the increased effort. Also, it was more of a future enhancement, because it's not something that would need to be there day 1.

 

11 hours ago, Millios said:

The "extra video features" is also pointless

I don't know about "pointless", but the features I was suggesting are definitely unnecessary, helpful and possibly fun, but unnecessary. The extra features were ideas that came to me while I was typing, so I'm sure they are not novel. It was my attempt of trying to think of ways that would be helpful to viewers. Like the pole could exist in a community tab and have integration with the extension's pole as well, so that the viewer can just click a button that is overlaying the video while it's playing instead of having to navigate away from the video to access it. It could even show the results in real-time, overlaying the video, in a spot that doesn't detract from the content for viewers that don't have the extension.

 

2 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

maintaining any extension would need to have similar force behind it as with Floatplane app support. So not much profit over costs.

So what I was thinking was that LTT could start with a dead simple extension that would just keep track of affiliate links, particularly affiliate links that offer viewers discounts in order to give users more incentive to install the extension. Something like, the viewer is watching a video with an affiliate link it then saves the affiliate link(saving it locally to the user's computer or phone), then if the user then goes to that product website it'll give the user the option to apply the LTT discount at checkout. On day 1, it would only be available on the most popular browser, so that once it gains traction and it starts to see dividends that prove that it can be cost effective to maintain, the enhancements can start. The link to the extension can be included in the description of a video with the affiliate link, so that viewers have the choice of clicking the affiliate link or having the set-it-and-forget-it option of installing the LTT affiliate extension. And if the concept is done well, it can be rolled out to other content creators for the cost of the extra maintenance required, if any.

 

2 hours ago, Taz900 said:

If they did do an extension it will just seem like Linus is just trying to do a money grab and if something goes wrong, it will just create more issues for them

You're speaking the truth, haters gonna hate and anything anyone does creates problems. They would have to weigh the risks to the rewards. It could also be a redemption arch for LTT on the Honey topic, because it could potentially grow into something that other content creators could benefit from as well. Though I did see those WAN shows and I agree with Linus that he should not have been blamed, but he was, because MegaLag missed the fact that it was a semi-known issue at the time when they stopped working with Honey.

 

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

The last thing I want is for an extension to keep history on what videos I have watched, all to give money to someone who isn't me.

You and me both as I do many things in order to avoid being tracked But also, affiliate links are how to track which videos you watched. I'm envisioning something that would only save information locally on your computer and it only saves LTT affiliate links. These would be links that give the user a discount, so that it would be a net gain for the user and content creator. Also it would only keep track of LTT affiliate links, unless maybe in the future they expand to include other content creators and you explicitly give permission to track their links as well. Also, don't use affiliate links if you don't want to be tracked

[Kisai]

17 hours ago, WhoTookMyThisGuyUsername said:

I got this idea after watching the whole Honey debacle, but basically, what if LTT decided to create it's own browser extension that would be able to insert it's own affiliate links at checkout, but unlike Honey, they could do it ethically. 

 

The kind of ethical fix to this entire debacle is to have an extension that does 5 things.

1. Connects to a p2p network that shares coupon codes and affiliate links so that "the best one" is always able to be found. No central control.

2. Allows the user to always use "their own" affiliate codes and coupons first that they have shared. 

3. Allows the user to prioritize which affiliates they do indeed want to support first.

4. Clearly tell the user who is getting the credit.

5. Age out affiliates and coupons that no longer work. Likewise have a button to erase all affiliate cookies and tracking information for privacy if the user wants to buy something they don't want to attribute to anyone. 

 

I'm oversimplifying these, but say you regularly buy from bestbuy, and you had 'honey' before, and it would occasionally give you a coupon, but it was always eating the affiliate code from LTT and such. What you'd want the extension to do is either wipe all affiliate codes if you haven't consented to it. Assign the affiliate code manually from the database (point 2 and 3) you want to always/only use on this site and then clearly tell the user who gets it.

 

Like to me all this seems relatively simple to make, just the distribute coupon database might be hard to maintain without writing some coupon servers for companies to broadcast their coupons to the database.

[Millios]

9 hours ago, WhoTookMyThisGuyUsername said:

The biggest issue with affiliate links, IMO, is getting viewers to actually click on the affiliate link. It's a much bigger hurdle to overcome than it sounds. My concept extension removes the need to click on the affiliate links, because the extension would keep track of that for you. And if you saw a video in the past and forgot which one it was the user is then required to go back, find the video, then click on the link. How many people would care enough to do that? I rarely do that and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I was envisioning something like, if a user goes to Amazon and is looking at a CPU, there could be an extra button or score that gets added under the product name that when clicked on or hovered over will show maybe a graph of how it stacks up to other similar CPUs based on benchmarks done by LTT. It could even suggest a better part for the same price, but that would be a bit more tricky, because you would need integration with retailers to get their prices, doable, but maybe not worth the increased effort. Also, it was more of a future enhancement, because it's not something that would need to be there day 1.

 

I don't know about "pointless", but the features I was suggesting are definitely unnecessary, helpful and possibly fun, but unnecessary. The extra features were ideas that came to me while I was typing, so I'm sure they are not novel. It was my attempt of trying to think of ways that would be helpful to viewers. Like the pole could exist in a community tab and have integration with the extension's pole as well, so that the viewer can just click a button that is overlaying the video while it's playing instead of having to navigate away from the video to access it. It could even show the results in real-time, overlaying the video, in a spot that doesn't detract from the content for viewers that don't have the extension.

 

So what I was thinking was that LTT could start with a dead simple extension that would just keep track of affiliate links, particularly affiliate links that offer viewers discounts in order to give users more incentive to install the extension. Something like, the viewer is watching a video with an affiliate link it then saves the affiliate link(saving it locally to the user's computer or phone), then if the user then goes to that product website it'll give the user the option to apply the LTT discount at checkout. On day 1, it would only be available on the most popular browser, so that once it gains traction and it starts to see dividends that prove that it can be cost effective to maintain, the enhancements can start. The link to the extension can be included in the description of a video with the affiliate link, so that viewers have the choice of clicking the affiliate link or having the set-it-and-forget-it option of installing the LTT affiliate extension. And if the concept is done well, it can be rolled out to other content creators for the cost of the extra maintenance required, if any.

 

You're speaking the truth, haters gonna hate and anything anyone does creates problems. They would have to weigh the risks to the rewards. It could also be a redemption arch for LTT on the Honey topic, because it could potentially grow into something that other content creators could benefit from as well. Though I did see those WAN shows and I agree with Linus that he should not have been blamed, but he was, because MegaLag missed the fact that it was a semi-known issue at the time when they stopped working with Honey.

 

You and me both as I do many things in order to avoid being tracked But also, affiliate links are how to track which videos you watched. I'm envisioning something that would only save information locally on your computer and it only saves LTT affiliate links. These would be links that give the user a discount, so that it would be a net gain for the user and content creator. Also it would only keep track of LTT affiliate links, unless maybe in the future they expand to include other content creators and you explicitly give permission to track their links as well. Also, don't use affiliate links if you don't want to be tracked

I want you to carefully go through my text and points

Not the bulletpoints and cliffnotes but all of it and see WHY i said what I said

[WhoTookMyThisGuyUsername]

17 hours ago, Kisai said:

The kind of ethical fix to this entire debacle is to have an extension that does 5 things.

1. Connects to a p2p network that shares coupon codes and affiliate links so that "the best one" is always able to be found. No central control.

This is my fault, I should have distanced my extension concept from Honey's as I do believe my concept is not supposed to be a replacement for Honey whatsoever. That's because I do believe that sharing coupon codes like Honey advertised is also unethical, because it potentially hurts the stores. The point of coupons is to entice consumers to buy something, right? So most consumers that are at checkout, are already enticed to buy it, so a coupon being applied at this time might just hurt store owner. I saw comments from small online stores saying that they had to get rid of their "first time buyer" coupons they would give out to first time buyers, because the coupons would often get shared by Honey or other similar services. Now you could argue that if Honey gave a discount at checkout, the buyer might try to buy from that store again, but then you have to weigh that against how many users get enticed by finding out about a coupon code and then going to the store from there. Unfortunately both are not quantifiable so it's hard to which is better. Personally I believe it's better for the store and consumers if discounts are tied to consumers viewing/interacting with marketing pieces and not tied to whether or not they have an extension like Honey installed. That is why my concept requires the user to have played the video with the product in it, rather than just having the extension installed. Of course that could also be gamed in a way were the user might just play videos in the background to gather these links and there might be new extensions and websites created that gather up these discounts to share, but maybe one day they could be stopped for being unethical There's never going to be a solution that solves every problem.

 

 

12 hours ago, Millios said:

I want you to carefully go through my text and points

Not the bulletpoints and cliffnotes but all of it and see WHY i said what I said

I'm sorry, but I did read your response carefully and if your right, then I must be missing the why, as I tried to address what I thought were the real issues that you brought up in your response. I had a lengthy response trying to address the issues you had in depth, but it wasn't worth the added clutter to the forum as I do believe you're missing my main point, which is the affiliate extension itself. The rest is extras and the details can be ironed out later.

[Millios]

8 hours ago, WhoTookMyThisGuyUsername said:

I'm sorry, but I did read your response carefully and if your right, then I must be missing the why, as I tried to address what I thought were the real issues that you brought up in your response. I had a lengthy response trying to address the issues you had in depth, but it wasn't worth the added clutter to the forum as I do believe you're missing my main point, which is the affiliate extension itself. The rest is extras and the details can be ironed out later.

You precisly missed the why those features are pointless

Part suggestor: different countries have different prices and availabilities and CPUs for example dont have the same performance in the same model

Poles: there are community tabs for that

Choose your own adventure videos: Already a thing and they dont fit the LTT style

Affiliate links: Already in the descriptions or info card (which isnt a hurdle by any metric) and it doesnt track what you watch like spyware

Your lengthy response was "but I like my idea so it's ok" if i were to put it in a nutshell

[StayThePath]

So how would that work exactly? How is LTT getting discounts on things? They have affiliate links, sure, but that doesn't mean those items are discounted. It just means that if someone uses one LTT gets a kickback. Just because they have affiliate links, doesn't mean they can offer people discounts. When companies offer discounts, it's generally not forever, just for a bit, so it's not as if every discount code or whatever LTT has offered still work.

So sure, if you wanted to make an extension that just uses LTT affiliate urls instead of the url you are already on, you could do that, but I don't know why people would go out of their way to use that extension just to make some money for LTT. There is no way the people using it would benefit at all. It's not a win-win, it's a win-IdidsomefreeworkforLTTfornoreason.