K. I understand that reasoning. Now do credit card $ back.It's affiliate fees that the online retailer pays to the referring site. The referring site basically gives you a cut to encourage you to click through their site to get to the online retailer. It's circular money that the online retailer factors into their overall costs to obtain a customer and therefore is paid for ultimately by everyone who shops at the online retailer as it gets built into their prices.
It's essentially like a rewards credit card and we all as consumers actually pay for it, but on the other hand you don't get a discount for not doing it, so you might as well get your % back.
Circular...but might as well get something than not.