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.
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.
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