I’ve slept since I watched and am not great with tech, but iirc the link with the affiliate code when clicked takes you to the site. Then honey has a pop up that, when clicked, replaces the link with their own, swiping the commission. Hope that makes sense - most people likely would not catch it. The Linus tech tips was used as an example of even a tech channel with lots of employees taking quite a while to notice themselves, and even when they did, it wasn’t quite conclusive for some reason?

Another thing the video touched on is that honey would claim to search for coupons but often opt to show what the partnered companies want. So, could be there’s a coupon for 50% but they only show 10%.