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Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

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Re: Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

#21

Post by kolosy »

jrockway wrote: post #20
kolosy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hurt financially == going to a restaurant/store/{insert random b&m service provider here} that i shouldn't have gone to, and spend more time/money + get worse service/product out of as a result. isn't the whole point of a review system to influence people's decisions?

In the end, you hurt yourself financially. What if there was no review system at all?

... then i would use other, less centralized and organized sources, as i did before yelp existed. what's your point?

i'm certainly not saying that yelp is stealing money from me, but trusted (yes, only to a certain extent) information is trusted information. if misleading, there are consequences to the consumer.

Re: Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

#22

Post by axod »

jrockway wrote: post #14
tptacek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't deserve a free pass on anything. They do deserve not to be bullied by businesses with massively more resources in ways that don't improve market efficiency. I have no problem with Wal Mart killing off neighborhood True Value hardware stores; that has a demonstrable benefit (though perhaps not one I'd choose) for consumers. I have a clear problem with a parasitic business extracting cash from a neighborhood…

The business doesn't lose anything by not playing Yelp's game. You would still go to the cafe if it had a few bad reviews on Yelp, and so would I. (Then again, I read the content of reviews rather than the arbitrary star rating. If someone says "1 star, I ordered a salad and hated it because I hate vegetables" then I am not going to think negatively of the business that has this review attached. I am going to think,…

I was looking for dedicated server hosting the other day, and that market is just ridiculously full of bad, stupid reviews.

"This dedicated server provider is terrible! They wouldn't even help me with a mysql problem" etc.

I'm sure half the hosting co reviews are done by competitors, and the other half are done by idiots who don't understand anything. And of course all the satisfied customers can't be bothered to write reviews.

It's always going to be best to get a personal recommendation than trusting reviews on the internet, for anything.

Re: Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

#23

Post by lukev »

evanrmurphy wrote: post #12
lukev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if there were some improprieties going on...If it was empirically useful, for you, why stop using it? This behavior would probably harm Yelp's business clients far more than their users. Or do you feel is was important to make a statement?

If Yelp is a sort of monopoly, then users' standards for its usefulness is a low bar, since they'll be comparing it to nothing rather than to a better alternative. (And before users have reason to suspect any foul play at Yelp - as they now do - it's more difficult for better alternatives to gain users' attention.)

I'm not sure there's room for a lot of competition for end users in a service like Yelp. "Review accuracy" isn't a metric that users are capable of measuring with any effectiveness - it's so subjective anyway. The only thing that will put one service above another is how many businesses have been reviewed, and Yelp has a huge head start there.

Re: Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

#24

Post by jrockway »

kolosy wrote: post #21
jrockway wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end, you hurt yourself financially. What if there was no review system at all?

... then i would use other, less centralized and organized sources, as i did before yelp existed. what's your point? i'm certainly not saying that yelp is stealing money from me, but trusted (yes, only to a certain extent) information is trusted information. if misleading, there are consequences to the consumer.

What I'm saying is that review sites are misleading even when reviews aren't being paid for. Paying people to write reviews makes the data no worse than it already was, because it was already pretty bad.

Re: Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

#25

Post by BigO »

jrockway wrote: post #14
tptacek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't deserve a free pass on anything. They do deserve not to be bullied by businesses with massively more resources in ways that don't improve market efficiency. I have no problem with Wal Mart killing off neighborhood True Value hardware stores; that has a demonstrable benefit (though perhaps not one I'd choose) for consumers. I have a clear problem with a parasitic business extracting cash from a neighborhood…

The business doesn't lose anything by not playing Yelp's game. You would still go to the cafe if it had a few bad reviews on Yelp, and so would I. (Then again, I read the content of reviews rather than the arbitrary star rating. If someone says "1 star, I ordered a salad and hated it because I hate vegetables" then I am not going to think negatively of the business that has this review attached. I am going to think,…

what if you had reviews made by your friends and sources you trust accessible to you online that seems like a better model than see what everyone and their dog thinks about everything under the sun..

Re: Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

#26

Post by kolosy »

jrockway wrote: post #24
kolosy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... then i would use other, less centralized and organized sources, as i did before yelp existed. what's your point? i'm certainly not saying that yelp is stealing money from me, but trusted (yes, only to a certain extent) information is trusted information. if misleading, there are consequences to the consumer.

What I'm saying is that review sites are misleading even when reviews aren't being paid for. Paying people to write reviews makes the data no worse than it already was, because it was already pretty bad.

but that's not what's happening - they're not paying people to write reviews, they're (allegedly) collecting money for removing unfavorable reviews. i think that's more damaging.

Re: Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

#30

Post by mclin »

arohner wrote: post #6
brk wrote: post #2

I've deleted the Yelp app from my iPhone. It seemed like a good idea early on, but I don't feel that I can trust the results any more, and it's not worth the trouble. It's a bummer because I travel a lot for work, so it was nice to be able to find local businesses.

Can anyone recommend an alternative?

How about ask someone in the neighborhood.

I've had good experiences going to new area and asking locals where I should eat. People take a lot of pride in their neighborhoods and are more than happy to help.

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