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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)

#201
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.

I too would like to know what you use. I hate using Yelp for the obvious reasons, but I don't have an alternative.

I still use Foursquare for reviews and ratings along with Google.

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

#202
post #77

Wait I don’t get the hate over this. This isn’t Grubhub pretending to be the restaurant or anything. This is Grubhub doing the equivalent of Google Search’s link tracking but for phone numbers so that they can attribute the sale to Yelp. Is it weird that Yelp has made referral codes for phone calls?

Near as I can tell people have been told to be angry at "big tech" often enough by vested interests that they believe it. Now "big tech" is a bogeyman and every action interpretted as a crime agaist humanity for not meeting their lofty standards which they apply only to foes.

That and a whole bunch of other stupid memes like "If it is something I cannot understand it must be bad!" and tribal provincialism.

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

#203
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…

This is nonsense, computing power has nothing to do with it switching out phone numbers.

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

#204

Does anyone have an alternative to Yelp. What I care about: - Open Now (Optional) - Sort by Rating - Search by food category, not name of restaurant. Part of the problem is I have a food allergy. I'm highly allergic to soy, so I can't eat all dishes at most restaurants except their drinks. The few I can eat at tend to be very high end or very highly rated, because the alternative to ingredients that use soy is almost…

My reaction was the same. Maybe Google Maps? Not that I want to send more of my data to Google, but this is totally unacceptable. Especially during COVID, I'm trying to make sure that as much of my money goes to the restaurant as possible when I call in a takeout order. It would be one thing if Yelp showed me an advertisement and I clicked through and placed an order. But when I'm using Yelp just to look up a phone n…

Currently what I do is I look resturants up on Yelp, due to my food allergy mentioned above, then I go to google for the phone number. Problem is, Yelp delists companies that do not pay them.

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

#205
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, technology offers some solutions to this like ssl certificates. Perhaps there is a business model for bespoke extended validation ssl certs where, for example, they are tied to a physical address.

SSL certificates, which require you to trust someone you’ve never met with the entirety of your digital life. From your social connections to your bank account and everything in between, you’re putting your faith not only in their honesty, but in their ability to limit mistakes. Not that there’s a better solution yet, but technical solutions like SSL certificates still boil down to trust, and in whom you place your.

This is also true for your computer hardware, the software you run, the medicines you take, the food you eat, the water you drink...

I guess my point is that that human trust is so pervasive and fundamental that there are diminishing returns to eliminating it.

What will always remain in style I think is accountability. So trust, but have supply chain integrity such that you know who it is that you're trusting and who is responsible when things go wrong.

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

#206
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 public still retains the expectations of the mechanical honesty era, and is an easy mark."

Is this statement suggesting that the "work" of the businesses exploiting these unrealistic expectations is "easy".

When a country's most successful companies are "middlemen" built upon a foundation of easily exploiting misplaced trust (misplaced belief in mechanical honesty) and governments actively seek to encourage more such "entrepreneurship", what does that mean for the future.

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

#207

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…

Maybe Google should fix that. If you Google a restaurant, your intent is to visit that restaurant website. If you add “reviews” after the query, then the intent is to read reviews about that restaurant. It’s trivial for Google to prioritize the actual website over agreegators. Most restaurants already have the ability to set up and “claim” their business on Google. Why not simply surface the “claimed” result first. A…

The restaurants we typically order from (all 3-5 of them), the first hit on google is an organic search result for that restaurant. No ads even. In some cases, it's the first two organic results (a main website, and then a direct link to their menu on that same website, which for some reason shows up as two different organic search results - I don't even mean sitelinks or the new indented stuff, I mean full on bona fide second organic search result for the same domain).

The only one that I usually order from for which this isn't the case doesn't actually have their own website.

So in some cases this is working.

What doesn't work for me is searching for the type of food - that's all aggregator sites.

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

#208
post #68
post #29

I see a lot of people saying this must be illegal, and the reason Yelp hasn't been sued is because restaurant owners can't afford legal fees. Isn't this the purpose of class action lawsuits? If Yelp is actually doing something illegal here, certainly, there's enough money to hire great counsel to represent all restaurant owners who are affected by this policy change.

I’m sure the restaurant will be very happy to receive their $15 Yelp Ad credit 7 years down the road.

A class action is more about punishing the wrongdoing than any recovery.

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

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is fundmentally broken, and has fundamentally broken the web. Total hyperbole. Google's handling of SEO at worst breaks a web experience that Google created . > In the old days we had paid search engines I've been using TCP/IP since 1985. I have been "on the Internet" since 1986. I created the first open website in the Pacific Northwest in 1993. I don't remember ever, not even once, using a paid search engin…

It doesn't matter that Google created the monster that is SEO, thr fact is that it exists and it's how most people navigate the web. Google creating AMP further breaks it and gives Google even more control. Google is very much the yelp of the Internet. I understand where you are coming from being an 80s baby myself, however more and more young adults see google as the homepage of the internet, much as many now see Fa…

Google certainly didn't create SEO. In fact their original search engine was notable because the SEO companies had not figured it out and for a couple of years the results were head and shoulders above competitors like Altavista and Ask Jeeves.

The only search engine that wasn't ruined by SEO was Archie. It was ruined by everybody shutting down their FTP sites.

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