You could say so, but in this case, to the influencers' credit, almost nobody noticed this was going on.
Btw, that's not the only way Honey was scamming people. They also advertised themselves as searching the internet for the cheapest possible coupons, saying if they can't find it, it doesn't exist, and meanwhile they were charging affiliate companies to allow them to control what coupons show up on their sites, so, the smallest coupons.

It’s a consequence of influencers promoting anything for a buck, no moral integrity— Not like I’m saying: “Don’t make money”, but, things like this have happened before, e.g Betterhelp & such. So, I’m leaning towards it being the consequence of their actions.

It's the old adage of 'if you don't pay for a service, then that makes you the product'. Quite disappointed that we're not learning from history.

🤷

Some marketing is harvesting all sides, yes. Influencers are a marketing work force that can be hired relatively cheap and scammed to boot so yes, being naive and sloppy choosing a partner is a thing influencers are known to fall for easily. Also YT itself has methods of scamming influencers and while some bigger influencers seem to cope well others suffer from double scams by companies and YT alike. It is hard earned money if you get it. And the non existent rules of YT make it easy at that.