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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

#341

Post by eridius »

efa wrote: post #261
kadabra9 wrote: post #12

Yelp 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…

Probably a very dumb question. Why do sites like Yelp/Quora try very hard to force you to use the app instead of the web site? Isn't it easier to make money on ads on the web? In the Yelp app I don't get any ads. I may be more likely to browse longer in the app I guess.

Ignoring advertising for a moment, mobile apps are first-class clients, whereas mobile websites frequently aren't. Mobile websites are usually stripped-down experiences, and the company doesn't want to invest the effort in turning the mobile website into a first-class client because most of the users are on the mobile app. It's easier to just funnel people into the app, which is also much more likely to get the user to come back (now they have the app on their home screen, the site can send notifications, etc)

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

#342

Post by soup10 »

goobynight wrote: post #339
soup10 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hijacking search results because they are sour the Yelp deal didn't go their way isn't competing LOL. They've already been fined billions for similar behavior.

They own the search results. Google isn't a public utility that gets hijacked. Yelp can start their own search competitor if they enjoy(ed) the synergy.

EU regulators disagree.

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

#345

Post by navigatesol »

codinger wrote: post #305
tempsy wrote: post #184

Makes 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.

The problem with using another form of payment is I won't purchase from a small business online without PayPal. PayPal offers consumer protection so I can take a risk with a company I don't trust yet. if it goes bad I can file a complaint and it will almost always get resolved.

You find PayPal better to deal with than your credit card company?

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

#346

Post by Shakahs »

RandallBrown wrote: post #239
kevin_b_er wrote: post #11

Amazing. Yelp redirects the customer who intended to look up their number in Yelp, redirects them GrubHub. GrubHub then grifts the restaurant for it. These online order companies are grifters. With tricks and sneaky fees, they exploit the restaurants, they exploit the customers, and if delivery is involved, they'll exploit the driver too.

Grubhub isn't grifting anyone. These restaurants have to sign up with Grubhub for the phone referral to do anything. It works both ways though. Restaurants will regularly put up menu items with titles like "Call in for discount for free delivery" or something like that so they can subvert the Grubhub fees while still getting the Grubhub traffic.

Grubhubs phone referral system is broken because they count any call longer than 45 seconds as a phone order. When their algorithm determines that a wrong number call will cost the restaurant $8 that is not okay.

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

#347

Post by navigatesol »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #223
TremendousJudge wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ones on "tech" that profess blind adoration towards these people are the ones that are in it for the profits

Elon Musk is one of the paypal mafia, but it seems that many people who aren't "in it for the profits" profess blind adoration

I can't tell if you're saying he's a good or bad example. But Musk has managed to get himself wealthy from many businesses that mostly burn capital, including the biggest CEO pay package in history. He may be the ultimate example of the PayPal Mafia.

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

#348

Post by Apocryphon »

cloverich wrote: post #238
braythwayt wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of a tangent, but it feels to me like using wads of funding to try to create hypergrowth is a good fit for "winner-take-all" markets, like those with network effects. Social media fits. Syncing documents, maybe not-so-much. So Dropbox invests in areas where there are possible network effects, like collaborating on documents. Because that's what fits its funding model. But simple file syncing... This is not a wi…

> But simple file syncing... This is not a winner-take-all market. On its own, probably not. But you could imagine several avenues they could naturally grow into, that would _eventually_ turn them into the equivalent of a full OS. Its not something I would personally bet on, but also not something that, if it worked out, would totally surprise me. E.g. maybe _they_ should have invented Google Docs, and then...

Sounds like what UpThere was working on. They ended up bought by Western Digital.

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

#349

Post by deogeo »

dymk wrote: post #335
deogeo wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're worth it only because without paying them protection money, your restaurant gets no visibility due to overcrowded marketing by other restaurants that do use GrubHub. Without them, or without Yelp, some other yellow-pages equivalent would be used, and the same total number of orders would be placed. They are literally parasites.

Sounds like they provide a search/aggregation service that many users find useful.

Lets say the internet isn't around yet, and people still use the yellow pages. One day, they decide to charge a 10% tax on all the revenue of a business, if they want to keep their listing in the yellow pages. Those that don't pay, get delisted. There is a competing service, the blue pages, that charges only a few cents for a listing. But it has far fewer readers, so any business that has only a blue page listing, not a yellow one, will see their income drop disastrously.

So they are stuck paying a heavy tax to the yellow pages, even though if the yellow pages were to completely disappear, all the readers would switch to blue pages, and everyone would get the same search/aggregation service, for a fraction of the cost.

That's pretty much the situation with Yelp/GrubHub, and I think that qualifies them as parasites (or rent-seekers, if you prefer).

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

#350

Post by floatrock »

floatrock wrote: post #267
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…

> It's leveraging it's market power to make money rather providing customers with any value... feels like society needs to come up with a new word, new idea The term economists use is "rent seeking behavior". There's a more interesting data play here, but I'll get to that in a sec. Now, ostensively the value is driving traffic and increasing number of customers. What they're actually doing is the blitzscaling playboo…

Or to put that last line another way: if you're making a data play, you aren't going to win over many early customers if you blindfold them and tell them to use your data analytics with a gun to the back of their head.

Grubyelp's data play may be a fantastic way to collect order data and help restaurants "Optimize Everything", but if the monetization is done in a way that people cry hidden fees and the onboarding is a binding arbitration clause buried in a contract, well, we know what a disregard for your customers does. Many people use Lyft because "it's not as scummy as Uber" despite Kalanick being gone for a few years now. Just last week DoorDash got a huge backlash when people learned where their tips were actually going.

This kind of growth hacking works to pad short term numbers, but long term it only works if you're a Comcast or Equifax and don't actually need to give a shit what people think of you.

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