While there are all sorts of claims about honey, I do think that it's easy to eat considerably less sugar without going totally cold-turkey by buying unsweetened things and adding honey yourself. Most people, I think, will just naturally use less than is added to typical products. A long time ago I decided to try buying plain yogurt and no-sugar-added muesli/granola and add honey to taste, rather than buying the standard commercial sweetened versions. I estimated at the time that it was like a 75% reduction in sugar at breakfast without any real thought or effort, and I never went back.

My main arguments for honey in some places is if you're eating local honey it might help with things like allergies.

That and honey just tastes so dang good.

And there's also a good chance that the honey they're consuming is just honey-flavored corn syrup anyway

I find that the real benefit of using honey is that it actually has a fairly strong taste beyond just being sweet, and for me at least, this means that I end up using less of it (basically stopping before it'd overwhelm the taste of whatever it is I'm actually trying to eat).