(Serious Q) What other good alternatives are out there for Yelp?
Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
271–280 of 461 posts
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#272I'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.
Meh. I remember we used to use Yelp to find the best restaurants in a city. It worked incredibly well. It doesn't anymore, but Google maps is not better. For example, I tried to use Google maps to find good buffalo wings in Brooklyn. But, the top suggestion didn't even have buffalo sauce on the menu! Just soy! I tend to blame SEO first and ads / paid promotion second.
Have you compared Google maps' results to those of Yelp's in Brooklyn? Did they show you anything that Google Maps didn't show?
Last time i checked Yelp was not available outside USA (checked while I was in India/Japan ~two years ago) while Google maps tons of data in those locations.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
what is this 1992
I believe this was reference to an old quote on HN when Dropbox was introduced.
It’s the HN equivalent of “less space than the Nomad, No Wireless. Lame.”
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
> have convinced me that simple file sync, which is all I ever wanted from them, is not enough to sustain a company. Is the problem that it's not enough to sustain a company, or that it's not enough to sustain investors who unreasonable expect constant growth? I'd posit that Dropbox has a sustainable business, and that their changes will likely hurt the long-term viability of that business.
Why would anyone pay $9.99 a month for Dropbox when you can pay $9.99 for Office 365, get the full office suite for six users with 1TB of storage each? I’ve never tried it, but unlike Dropbox, with OneDrive you can share folders without the shared folders taking away from your storage. With Dropbox for instance with the free account, if you have 2GB of storage and use a shared folder with 2GB of storage you still hav…
> Why would anyone pay $9.99 a month for Dropbox when you can pay $9.99 for Office 365, get the full office suite for six users with 1TB of storage each?
Dropbox's entire business relies on reliable file sync. Microsoft on the other hand, has OneDrive as one of many services. If I'm setting up cloud services for businesses that need years of guaranteed service with little change and good customer support, I know Dropbox will be there. Microsoft on the other hand... not so sure.
Remember when OneDrive offered "unlimited" file storage then took it away 1 year later?
The OneDrive client sync (until maybe the past year) was extremely slow and unreliable once you hit 100k+ files. Dropbox was the only one that would get the job done.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are other companies that have apps but not sites (or their site is just a download button) slimy? Should yelp not be allowed to pivot from website to app? I might not agree with that strategic direction as a customer, but its well within their right as a company to choose what they want to be.
Depending how you set your Criteria, certainly Facebook for example will try its darnest not to let you read your messages on mobile browser, but rather force you to download the messenger ️. I would personally characterize that as slimy and annoying; others may well disagree. Internets are also full of condemnation for Reddit's app vs website, and their attempt to force the app upon user.
old.reddit.com still works for me.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#276It 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…
Grubhub's value to me is that they send out surveys to most (or all?) customers who order from restaurants, so the star ratings are actually useful to me. A lower rating is a huge red flag when I'm checking out new places, at least. But is that worth 15%? Most definitely not.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#277Yelp is such a slimy company. First they wall off their mobile web reviews to try to force you to download their POS app, they have the whole extortion racket going trying to strongarm restaurants into paying for advertising, and now this. Friendly reminder - if you are on mobile and trying to read a Yelp review and don't want to download their app, simply hold refresh, click "request desktop site" and it will load t…
> simply hold refresh, click "request desktop site" Apple are changing that feature in iOS13 to be a lot more obvious (menu where reader button is). And iPadOS13 (beta 4) defaults to Desktop Mode (might break lots of websites) although there is a setting to change it to default to Mobile Mode. Android Chrome users have Desktop Mode checkbox under the hamburger menu.
I'm running the iPad OS beta and have yet to run into a site that it breaks. Mostly it's a huge upgrade, you can use sites like YouTube that have been serving the gimped phone version to iPad users for years. Set the video resolution? Don't mind if I do!
It sounds simple, but I've read that at lot of work went into the desktop class browsing experience so that it can handle websites that are designed for cursors. There's more to the change than just sending a desktop useragent.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why would anyone pay $9.99 a month for Dropbox when you can pay $9.99 for Office 365, get the full office suite for six users with 1TB of storage each? Well, what is Dropbox doing wrong that they have to charge so much more? (Given that offering more products for the same price basically equivalent to charging less per product)
Who's to say they're doing anything wrong? Microsoft is a huge company that can subsidize products using their profits from other products. They book Office 365 revenue as cloud revenue, and they're eager to grow that portion of their business to make Azure look good. So they're basically giving away services and throwing money at it to pad growth for Azure. If anything, it's likely Dropbox's prices are closer to the…
Okay, so the problem isn't Dropbox's original business model was inherently flawed, but that they have a competitor who is behaving unsustainably.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#279Makes me think really hard about tech’s blind adoration for the “PayPal mafia.” I find myself seeing more instances of soul crushing amoral behavior from this group of entrepreneurs than just about any other group.
It's worth pointing out that Google shamelessly cloned Yelp and funnels everyone into using their clone when they search for restaurants. If Yelp is in desperate spot its because Google put them there.
They could have just done a better job and not been shady. Not that hard really.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#280Makes me think really hard about tech’s blind adoration for the “PayPal mafia.” I find myself seeing more instances of soul crushing amoral behavior from this group of entrepreneurs than just about any other group.
It's worth pointing out that Google shamelessly cloned Yelp and funnels everyone into using their clone when they search for restaurants. If Yelp is in desperate spot its because Google put them there.
the moment became apparent that bad review removal (or yelp "sorting" them to the very bottom) was available to paying users yelp lost my trust. they don't have anyone else to blame for that.