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Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

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Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

#181

Post by floren »

duxup wrote: post #69
sundayedition wrote: post #5

I've found Google Maps review quality and quantity improved over the last few years so it's rare that I'd even open Yelp in recent months. With this, I'm deleting my Yelp app.

When I used to use Yelp, I found the reviews are so hard to wade though. So many: - I had a bad time .. once. - This restaurant isn't as good as this other place that is twice as expensive. - We had to wait a "long time". - The food sucked (because they don't like the kind of food they serve...). - This place sucks and you should go to this other completely different place.

Also "the staff is so RUDE!". Any review which uses the word "rude" can be safely ignored, because it's written by the kind of person who considers it rude that his/her water glass went unfilled for nearly 30 seconds after being emptied.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

#182

Post by Aperocky »

mabbo wrote: post #142

It feels as though much of tech has gone from helping people accomplish their goals efficiently to a business model of extracting rents while providing no or little value. In this example, what benefit is GrubHub providing to anyone? The person used Yelp solely to look up the phone number of a restaurant. GrubHub deserves 15% of his order for that? Why, because they made a deal to give X% of it to Yelp, and convinced…

I've never used Yelp and never really needed it. Google imo is a much more neutral service and not hard to use at all to find restaurants.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

#183

Post by duxup »

floren wrote: post #181
duxup wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I used to use Yelp, I found the reviews are so hard to wade though. So many: - I had a bad time .. once. - This restaurant isn't as good as this other place that is twice as expensive. - We had to wait a "long time". - The food sucked (because they don't like the kind of food they serve...). - This place sucks and you should go to this other completely different place.

Also "the staff is so RUDE!". Any review which uses the word "rude" can be safely ignored, because it's written by the kind of person who considers it rude that his/her water glass went unfilled for nearly 30 seconds after being emptied.

I always wonder about that, like who is the rude person... really hard to know.

I don't think I've ever encountered "rude" staff. Maybe just dumb luck but it's just not something that has occurred to me where I thought that.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

#185

Post by mistahenry »

duxup wrote: post #69
sundayedition wrote: post #5

I've found Google Maps review quality and quantity improved over the last few years so it's rare that I'd even open Yelp in recent months. With this, I'm deleting my Yelp app.

When I used to use Yelp, I found the reviews are so hard to wade though. So many: - I had a bad time .. once. - This restaurant isn't as good as this other place that is twice as expensive. - We had to wait a "long time". - The food sucked (because they don't like the kind of food they serve...). - This place sucks and you should go to this other completely different place.

Totally agree. The reviews are really biased and quite worthless. I’ve been building a website/app in my spare time https://wuzgud.app

The whole idea is that you only put in places that you love, because nobody cares about places you found average. I have this dream that one day there’d be this whole positive community of people just sharing places that they love.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

#186

Post by dreamcompiler »

I think it's high time for a full-blown FTC investigation into Yelp for restraint of trade, consumer fraud, false advertising, and whatever else the FTC can think of. These parasites have outlived their usefulness.

Failing that, a high-profile class-action lawsuit might get their attention.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

#187

Post by JaRail »

heartbreak wrote: post #108
ilikehurdles wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.yelp-support.com/article/Does-Yelp-extort-small-... I've kind of gotten tired of diving into the whole "yelp extorted my brother's cousin's friend's coworker's business for better ratings" anecdotal story schtick so I'm just going to link the above -- or are you suggesting they're getting away with lying on official communication? If yelp is altering reviews for paying clients, please show the evidence as…

It's not Yelp directly, it's their outside sales contractors. Anyone who manages the online presence of a small business can contribute corroboratory anecdotes, including me. Yelp encourages this behavior from their contractors. I'm sorry that no one has formally studied Yelp's shady business practices, because that leaves us without data you find worthy of consumption. Maybe an enterprising law firm will change that…

The practice of using a contractor to avoid liability really speaks to the fact that they know what they're doing is wrong.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

#188

Post by ryandrake »

cevn wrote: post #130
lazerwalker wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't necessarily frame that as an inevitability of Dropbox as a product, as much as an inevitability of the traditional VC funding model. It's likely you could build a very healthy business selling people file syncing — I personally use a tiny minimalist Dropbox competitor that seems to be doing just fine. The hypergrowth demanded by investors when you take on $1.7B in funding is what's the challenge.

> tiny minimalist Dropbox competitor what is it? I'm lookin for alternatives

I heard you can do it quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

#189

Post by acjohnson55 »

ljm wrote: post #178
jedberg wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried using Google to find places to eat, but Yelp's search is just so much easier. If I'm in a new place, I just pull up Yelp, click "Restaurants" and go with the first thing that has food I like. It's never failed me yet. It might not be the best or cheapest around, but usually the thing with 4+ stars is still pretty good. We've found a couple of places that way where we keep going back every time we're in tow…

For that precise reason I don’t use Yelp (or similar) at all. I love serendipitous discovery and my favourite places wouldn’t win any such popularity contest (and I’m thankful they don’t). I believe that this quantification of all aspects our world leeches much of the enjoyment and discovery from it, so I prefer not to participate.

Some of my favorite restaurants no longer exist because they weren't discovered. So I'd just caution that that feeling of having one's personal list of hidden gems may not align with the interests of the people that run those places.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut

#190

Post by thanhhaimai »

jedberg wrote: post #170
MentallyRetired wrote: post #15

It's hard to make money as a directory service with Google and Apple Maps around. The shadier they get, the bigger of a sign it is that they're in trouble financially, I would think.

I've tried using Google to find places to eat, but Yelp's search is just so much easier. If I'm in a new place, I just pull up Yelp, click "Restaurants" and go with the first thing that has food I like. It's never failed me yet. It might not be the best or cheapest around, but usually the thing with 4+ stars is still pretty good. We've found a couple of places that way where we keep going back every time we're in tow…

Are you perhaps in the Bay Area? Yelp has a very strong presence in the Bay Area. However, when I travel to the EU and outside of California, I notice that the quality/quantity of reviews from Yelp vs Google is reversed. People advised me to find restaurants using Google Maps instead. Restaurants owners also put up sign asking to be rated on Google.
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