Honey is either:

- Stealing the commission from an affiliate link assigned to someone else

- Cutting itself a commission by inserting an affiliate link, when there was none, essentially profiting off you without your consent.

- Cheating the companies doing the affiliate marketing by taking credit for purchases that happened without honey's involvement

There are at least the following claims:

- Inserts its own affiliate link (even when no discount is found, uses strategies to push for interaction like adding a dismiss/pay with paypal link that adds the affiliate association)

- Adds a very small kickback from the affiliate payment they receive as a rewards program. (Which, while scraps, makes content creators "lose" in economic terms in the affiliate offerings)

- Promises to consumers to find the best discounts available

- Promises to vendors to allow control of the discounts offered and the offer rate of said discounts

- Previous both promises are contradictory yet simultaneously offered

- An extra/upcoming claim around forcing non-affiliated stores to affiliate.

I bet it surprises everyone who had their affiliate links quietly swapped out.

> Would I call this scam? No, I wouldn't.

Then your definition of 'scam' needs work.

While we might expect PayPal's Honey to scam people like this, and be less than surprised that they would screw people over in this way, that doesn't mean this doesn't have every element of a scam - deception and trickery (and likely illegality).