Category: Marketing

How a DIY space turned into capitalist clickbait hell…

Affiliate marketing began in the 1990s as a way for early, scrappy web publishers to earn a percentage of e-commerce sales they helped generate. One of the earliest examples of this was CDNow’s BuyWeb program, which launched in 1994. The program was based on a simple idea: website owners who reviewed music releases could place tokenized product links for CDs their readers might be interested in purchasing. The website owners could then earn commissions from any resulting sales.

In those early years, affiliate content focused on writing product reviews, posting about deals, and creating niche content. It was largely the domain of independent publishers, who ran forums, wrote long-form blog posts, and maintained product recommendation sites based on experience and genuine interest. It felt trustworthy, and many of these platforms gained loyal followings and strong SEO rankings early in the game, eventually becoming surprisingly profitable.

As affiliate marketing turned DIY publishers into sustainable businesses in the 2010s, large corporations saw how lucrative this space had become, and their desire to get a piece of the pie led to edging out or swallowing up the independents.

Media conglomerates began to acquire or launch their own affiliate commerce verticals. But their focus on prioritizing affiliate commissions over journalistic integrity meant that quality content quickly diminished into an algorithm-driven cash grab. When The New York Times acquired product review guide The Wirecutter, readers began to question whether products were still thoroughly tested or merely cursorily reviewed in pursuit of clicks.

Today, large publishers churn out SEO-optimized listicles like “Top 25 Amazon Items You Didn’t Know You Needed” (spoiler: because you don’t) – frequently featuring low-quality, impulse-buy products selected only because price, trendiness, or other algorithmic signals predict strong rankings and conversions. I would assume that it’s pretty obvious to most readers now that content is now reverse-engineered from what converts rather than what informs. However, the conversions are still there, with Condé Nast reporting that as much as 20% of its revenue comes from affiliate partnerships. In any case, the landscape has shifted – affiliate content drives big sales not because the content is trustworthy or the products are quality, but because the content is everywhere, easy to skim, and exploits impulse behavior.

Large finance and tech companies have also moved aggressively into affiliate marketing, with many investing in proprietary affiliate technology that embeds directly into their existing products. For example, Capital One uses its cardholder dashboards to promote its browser extension, Capital One Shopping (formerly Wikibuy), which promotes cash-back offers across online retailers. Powered behind the scenes by affiliate tracking, the plugin drops cookies, monitors activity, and applies Capital One’s own affiliate codes as users shop online. Capital One is uniquely positioned to maximize consumer reach with its affiliate technology, because it already has access to cross-promotion platforms, user segmentation and behavioral data, brand trust, and technological capital.

With these advantages, large institutions are positioned to effectively absorb the affiliate model and sideline independent creators. In 2025, for example, a class-action lawsuit alleged that Capital One Shopping was overriding existing affiliate links, diverting commissions away from the smaller creators. Similar allegations have surfaced against other major players like Microsoft and Paypal. In turn, this has muddled advertiser trust, as these technologies can skew numbers to show referrals that the publishers didn’t originally capture. However, many advertisers continue to use these services, because they still reach millions of users, and, at the end of the day, advertisers are looking for results, not truth.

Revenue-generating pathways for DIY publishers do still exist, but the playing field has shifted. A new kind of affiliate marketer has emerged in the form of short-form content creators. Due to the rise of TikTok and Instagram influencers, affiliate revenue has reshaped into something far more dependent on platform logic than personal trust. And unlike their blog-era predecessors, these new creators don’t own their distribution channels. They’re posting on platforms designed to prioritize engagement, meaning their reach depends on constantly shifting algorithms, and their success hinges on how well their content aligns with the goals of their platform. TikTok, for example, naturally boosts posts promoting products it already has inventory and deals for in TikTok Shop. Creators succeed when their content matches the platform’s sales priorities. It’s no longer based on products they actually use or trust, but reverse-engineered from what’s likely to convert.

At the same time, we are seeing the affiliate networks themselves move beyond behind-the-scenes tracking and reporting – they’re launching their own publishing platforms and storefronts to capture more value across the affiliate marketing ecosystem. By running their own consumer-facing products, networks generate their own share of affiliate commissions rather than relying on the reach of third-party publishers. For example, Rakuten now operates its own cashback and deals site after acquiring Ebates, a successful publisher from within Rakuten’s own affiliate network.

Although affiliate marketing as a side hustle remains popular and still enables small creators to generate a sizable income, the landscape has dramatically shifted. What began as an open, accessible system with low barrier to entry has been overtaken by large institutions that once dismissed the space yet now want to control it. These institutions have layered themselves between creator and consumer, and, in doing so, they have eroded the core values that made affiliate marketing effective in the first place: trust, authenticity, and genuine relationships between creators and their audiences. At its present state, content is only a vehicle for sales, not substance. It’s an afterthought.

Instead of rewarding trust and insight, the system in its current state favors those who can scale traffic or intercept it. To restore balance and rebuild trust, we need new models that resist the logic of this extractive system, like cooperatively-owned affiliate networks where publishers of all sizes can help shape attribution standards and uphold guidelines for transparency and legitimacy. Such networks would empower all publishers to participate equitably and have a voice in shaping the ecosystem’s rules. And establishing such standards can benefit publishers, creators, advertisers, and consumers alike.

Here’s how it could work:

1. Creator-Led Governance
   Publisher members would vote on attribution policies, fee structures, and ethical standards. For example, most major affiliate networks use last-click attribution, meaning 100% of the commission goes to the final affiliate link clicked before a sale. While this model is easier to track, it disproportionately benefits large publishers that focus on intercepting purchase-ready users, through tactics like search engine capture, browser plugins, or retargeted ads. These methods often override the efforts of smaller or niche creators who may have introduced the product earlier in a consumer’s buying journey. Over time, networks become more aligned with large publishers, since they appear to generate the most revenue. A cooperative model shifts power back to creators, ensuring that platform policies reflect the diverse needs of the community, not just corporate-scale traffic machines.
2. Transparent Attribution Technology
   In most major affiliate networks, publishers can usually only see if they got credit, but not why they didn’t. They can’t trace if a coupon plugin or retargeted ad may have swooped in and gotten that last click. In an equitable, cooperative network, members may opt for full transparency into how referrals are credited. Clear, open-source, auditable logs can show the full referral path, including who introduced the product, when, and through which channel. Members can verify, audit, adapt, or even vote to modify how attribution is handled, reducing disputes and preventing common abuses.
3. Shared Revenue Pooling
   With transparency in the attribution flow, networks could move beyond awarding 100% commission to a single publisher. Instead, the commission pool could be distributed fairly based on actual, verified impact, ensuring that everyone who contributes along the referral path receives their share.
4. Ethical Advertiser Vetting
   Because advertisers are the ones who pay the bills in affiliate networks, affiliate networks are pressured to cater to their business goals. This sometimes results in practices like revoking commissions with little transparency or recourse, enforcing strict rules on publisher content, or implementing program changes without advance notice. In a cooperative system, both advertisers and publishers would have equal representation and voice, ensuring that policies and decisions reflect the needs and fairness of the entire community rather than the business goals of advertisers.
5. Discovery That Favors Quality
   If an affiliate network hosts its own consumer-facing platform, this platform could focus on recommendation and search algorithms that reward thoughtful, high-engagement content over what’s trending or keyword-packed, returning power to smaller publishers who focus on quality and insight.
6. No Platform Middleman
   Unlike affiliate networks that use their consumer-facing platforms to capture commissions directly, a cooperative network would aim to remain neutral as a utility layer that supports the relationship between creator, consumer, and brand. If the cooperative were to operate a content platform, the network itself would not compete with its publisher network by creating its own storefront or consumer brand. It only facilitates those connections.

A cooperative model may not match the scale of the existing players overnight. But what it lacks in mass, it makes up for in mission. By emphasizing shared governance, it aims to restore the foundational value of affiliate marketing – rewarding “mom-and-pop” publishers for their trustworthiness, unique taste, and commitment to transparency. More than that, it’s a step toward reclaiming the internet’s roots as a DIY space for free, honest information exchange and pushing back against the dystopian flood of ads and clickbait that dominate today.