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Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

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Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#221

Post by mdasen »

specialist wrote: post #72
jellicle wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not libel but instead: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unfair-trade-practice.a... I honestly don't understand why various state attorneys haven't taken this on. Not enough complaints?

I consider this inauthentic speech (impersonation, fraud). I'm now looking for model legislation, ideas on how to fix this. As said upthread, I'm meeting with two of my reps. Please share any ideas.

I'd guess (and it is a guess) that it wouldn't fall under this because Yelp would only show this "inauthentic" number for businesses that have signed an agreement with Yelp.

Yelp is going to be a mix of businesses that are just listed and have no relationship with Yelp and then things like a restaurant that has signed an agreement for GrubHub to handle some ordering for them. That agreement could include something like, "you agree that orders received via GrubHub will have this fee structure that you have to pay us and orders that come in via phone from our website are also considered an order generated by us and will have this fee structure".

At that point, the business is "agreeing" to that phone number. I put "agreeing" in quotes because restaurants might feel like they're compelled to agree or lose out on significant business given Yelp's market position.

I think it's harder to allege impersonation or fraud if the business has agreed to it. I think it's easier to allege that the business didn't really have a choice in the matter given the company's dominance in the market.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#222

Post by kens »

ajb wrote: post #33

In 1891, the first electromechanical telephone exchange was invented by Almon Strowger, an undertaker. He was concerned that the human operators were diverting his customers (specifically, the wife of one of his competitors was an operator). If you think about it, every business interaction before the twentieth century was mediated by 1:1 interactions with humans, who brought their own prejudices and self-interest to…

> the start of an era of "mechanical honesty"

I'd like to mention the under-appreciated development of the cash register in the 1880s. Prior to the cash register, the owner had to trust cashiers not to pocket money. Cash registers became enormously popular and revolutionized sales since they kept everyone honest, as well as letting business owners know what was going on.

(The book "Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, & Remington Rand & the Industry They Created" goes into a lot of detail on this.)

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#223

Post by jessaustin »

smrtinsert wrote: post #170

I don't get it. It's well known yelp is awful. Why hasn't a competitor emerged to take them on?

The position occupied by Yelp only generates opportunities to scam. There's no natural surplus-generating business there. Few entrepreneurs would choose to compete for that, when they're just starting out. Maybe some would be forced into it after too many pivots, but Yelp is probably clever enough to stay ahead of them.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#225

Post by harpiaharpyja »

hedora wrote: post #163
ajb wrote: post #33

In 1891, the first electromechanical telephone exchange was invented by Almon Strowger, an undertaker. He was concerned that the human operators were diverting his customers (specifically, the wife of one of his competitors was an operator). If you think about it, every business interaction before the twentieth century was mediated by 1:1 interactions with humans, who brought their own prejudices and self-interest to…

A few people seemed to have missed an important step in the argument: Mechanical systems used to be simple enough to be (mostly) auditable. For instance, if you have a wind up clock on the wall and a chalkboard schedule in an office, you can be sure it tells the same time and the same schedule, regardless of who looks at it. Like an evil secretary, meeting room scheduling tablets could be configured to gaslight parti…

I would argue that this auditability is a bigger factor than GP's "computing power" claim.

It's the result of hiding the process from users under the name of convenience.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#226

Post by kjs3 »

Diederich wrote: post #186
kjs3 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah...I never use Yelp, because it's so obviously gamed and I know I'm getting bad info at every turn. And that's without talking to small businesses owners in my area, all of which have a tale of shady Yelp practices.

What do you use, if you don't mind sharing? My wife does various kinds of consulting for local small businesses and we have many stories (that I've put in other Yelp WTF replies here on HN previously) about how horrible Yelp is. While we know that Google is by far from perfect, that's what we use almost exclusively in this space, though very open to alternatives.

90% of the time, I ask someone. A real person. Apps are probably never going to be the answer unless something drastic changes, because the app developers have proven over and over they're more interested in maximizing revenue at all cost, not delivering me a good experience. And the "social media"/gamification of the user community is full of perverse incentives resulting in nothing you can trust.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#227

Post by specialist »

mdasen wrote: post #221
specialist wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider this inauthentic speech (impersonation, fraud). I'm now looking for model legislation, ideas on how to fix this. As said upthread, I'm meeting with two of my reps. Please share any ideas.

I'd guess (and it is a guess) that it wouldn't fall under this because Yelp would only show this "inauthentic" number for businesses that have signed an agreement with Yelp. Yelp is going to be a mix of businesses that are just listed and have no relationship with Yelp and then things like a restaurant that has signed an agreement for GrubHub to handle some ordering for them. That agreement could include something li…

Here's my attempt to restate your thesis:

I grab the u/mdasen profile on misc medium. eg DNS, Facebook, Yelp, Tinder, Gmail, telco, USPS. I then pretend I'm u/mdasen. You (the IRL u/mdasen) eventually hear about my faux profiles and get grumpy.

What then are your options?

Are you claiming that Facebook (or whomever) has no ability or obligation to bounce me and transfer these u/mdasen profiles to you?

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#228

Post by tfehring »

fairity wrote: post #37
colpabar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have personally never seen much value in Yelp. Most people use Google as a starting point when searching anything, and the Yelp page that is returned is not very helpful to me. At best, it contains menus, pictures, hours, phone number, and reviews. At worst, it has none of those and is effectively an ad for the Yelp app. Either way, Google shows me all of that before I click anything else. Google absolutely tries t…

> The Yelp page that is returned is not very helpful to me. At best, it contains menus, pictures, hours, phone number, and reviews. Menus, pictures of food, and honest reviews aren't helpful to you? I think most people get a lot of value out of Yelp. Yelp's review system is among the hardest to game, so it has the most trustworthy reviews for service-based businesses. That said, that's largely besides the point of th…

> Yelp's review system is among the hardest to game

I assume you mean it's among the hardest to game except by paying Yelp to remove negative reviews - that's a pretty important caveat when it comes to trustworthiness.

I'm almost entirely de-Googled at this point, but I make an exception specifically to avoid Yelp, which somehow manages to be even worse than Google within its niche.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#229

Post by cgriswald »

Kalium wrote: post #119
bichiliad wrote: post #112

I think that this practice of Yelp is pretty malicious. I did have a shower thought the other day, though: Individual restaurants often run their own websites. Plenty of those offer a phone number for you to call them through, and they frequently encourage you to do so because it saves them on order fees typically accrued by Yelp, GrubHub, Seamless, or any other order system. In order for that site to show up first i…

> In general, restaurant websites appear higher than their online ordered alternatives They do, in the case where people are looking for a specific restaurant. What about the now-increasingly-common case where people are looking to see what's open and doing delivery nearby? Looking through a dozen restaurant's websites to hunt down all that info (and hoping it's current) is a pretty miserable experience. Yelp makes i…

> Looking through a dozen restaurant's websites to hunt down all that info (and hoping it's current) is a pretty miserable experience. Yelp makes it trivial to filter on a map.

On desktop, maybe.

Here's my experience trying this out on mobile (safari/iOS) just now:

I searched for "Pizza" with "San Francisco, CA" pre-filled. I am presented with a screen that ostensibly gives me a choice between "Open in the Yelp App" and "Continue to mobile site." I say ostensibly, because I don't get the chance to choose before a second tab opens up with a strange URL that causes iOS to open up the app store to their app.

I close the app store and go back to Safari and click "continue to mobile site". There are some results listed. I click "map".

Yelp asks me for my location. I allow it. It shows me results for San Francisco. I'm about 30 miles away on the peninsula. Now, I know I searched for San Francisco, and maybe that's what I want. But then what is Yelp even doing with my location?

At the bottom is an add for their iOS App. I click "x" to close it. Nothing happens. After four clicks, it finally leaves.

I click "Filters", select "Open Now" and submit.

Yelp asks for my location again. I allow it. It now shows me the results that are open, still ranging from SF to Colma. (So again, I have no idea what they're doing with my location.)

I click on a result. In this case, Golden Boy Pizza. I click on a photo. I scroll a few photos. On the sixth photo, I am presented the option of viewing all 3427 photos ...in the app.

I scroll down to look at reviews. Oh, those stars aren't reviews for this restaurant. They're sponsored suggestions. I scroll down further. I click a review that looks interesting because I want to read the whole thing.

...it takes me back to the app store without even a prompt.

---

So, yeah, it's technically 'trivial' in the sense that you can get a list. But to actually use that list, you have to worry if any random click is going to take you away from the website. Some of the information you want is completely inaccessible without installing their software. (And even if you go through it all, there's no guarantee Yelp's information is current either.) Even if I trusted Yelp, I'd rather use any other method to find a pizza place.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#230

Post by xeromal »

mywittyname wrote: post #69
elefanten wrote: post #55

Yelp is one those companies. I use the product regularly, but I hate doing so -- the experience is awful and the core information is rarely particularly helpful. But they still get me to come in because they have the most information about some places. What really sets me off is how much "moral" crusading they do (eg- vs. Google) compared to how much shady stuff they do. This is just latest in a long line of crummy b…

Why do you use Yelp? I've never needed it because every restaurant that I go to is on Google or maintains their own website. It's been known for years now that the reviews on Yelp are largely fake and they hide legit ones, so it's nearly useless for that as well. At least with Google Maps reviews, I can click on the reviewer and see the other places they've been.

The pictures are generally better on yelp because they usually come from eaters rather than the restaurant themselves.
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