At least they had to build elaborate services to lure people in. This honey is just a 1999/2000 idea and tech that somehow made money in this day and age. Weird.
the point is that the service that honey provides doesn't seem to warrant selling your entire browsing activity. At least facebook and google provide a means of communication that is difficult, sometimes impossible, to provide elsewhere on the internet
Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel will put you in some group e.g. ice cream lovers so when you search Google or scroll Facebook feed they will show you ice cream ads.
Facebook and Google are creating a solution to a problem they themselves created by killing competition and the open web. That's the only reason it may appear that alternative means of communications is "difficult" or "sometimes impossible."