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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

#451

Post by lucb1e »

nelgaard wrote: post #438
fouc wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google itself isn't exactly ethical anymore unfortunately

Then add Judge Roy Bean Public House to OpenStreetMap In Denmark you will find almost all restaurant and food places in Openstreetmap. I have created tools that help to keep POI'd up-to-date by mapping to public health inspection reports. https://github.com/elgaard/OpenStreetmapTools/tree/master/re... https://digitalfrihed.dk/restaurants/all.html We could use some kind of open reviews. That is more tricky, which is a…

> We could use some kind of open reviews

Victor Shcherb, the creator of OsmAnd, is working on OpenPlaceReviews: https://openplacereviews.org

Unfortunately it's a lot of blockchain babble so I am afraid it might be super overengineered, but whatever, so long as it works. Not sure when this is going to be released. There is a Telegram channel at https://t.me/openplacereviews

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

#452

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

creato wrote: post #420
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google also sells your direct links to "Buy Tickets" and your phone number to 3rd party affiliates that will take a cut without your permission. I've been fighting for almost a year to get links in our profile pointed back to our website for a website with more than 1 Million hits a year and a 30k Google Ad spend.

What do you mean by "profile"? I think you just need to "take ownership" of the maps place, and then presumably you can control the links and phone number and such. Hopefully there is some verification involved... I have no idea how to actually do this, I just remember seeing a link asking if I own this or that business on maps, I guess when it is unclaimed?

We have ownership of our profile and filled out the links with what we wanted initially.

In fact when we log in to manage our profile it still shows the correct link, but the link replacement is happening on a layer in between the profile management and what displays to users.

After several years Google just swapped the link to a 3rd party that claims to have an agreement with us. Which there is no documentation of, and the dispute process is not handled by Google but the 3rd party directly. Which is why fixing it has taken over a year.

And to correct my earlier comment our Google Ad budgets is now 120k+ per year. But even this doesn't give us the ability to appeal to a higher authority and swap the link.

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

#453

Post by exadeci »

buildzr wrote: post #407
Aeolun wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I do not understand is why nobody copied yelp with an ethical business model yet.

Google Maps? I mean, it's not perfect, the reviews aren't great, but usually anything rated 4.5+ is at least solid and they don't mess around with restaurant phone numbers.

I can't figure out why everyone in the US is so obsessed with using that POS that is Yelp when Maps does a great job at staying clean.

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

#454

Post by MereInterest »

eridius wrote: post #428
MereInterest wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems entirely circular. The mobile website is poorly made, so people use the mobile app, so the mobile website is neglected. I can understand why the mobile app gains dominance after the cycle starts. The question is more why this cycle starts.

People are going to use the mobile app regardless. It's the first-class experience for mobile. People don't use the app because the website is poor; people simply use the app . Or to put it another way, Yelp would be rightfully lambasted for not having a mobile app. Having a mobile app is table stakes for a site like Yelp. And if you've got all this engineering effort going towards a mobile app, why double your workl…

I think that was my main annoyance when Google removed the "merge tabs and apps" feature in 2016. With that feature, a shortcut to a webpage was a first-class experience that worked nicely with the app switcher.

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

#455

Post by CydeWeys »

la_barba wrote: post #448
bscphil wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, the hostility is that users are forced to use the mobile app. Forcing someone to do something that is (granted for the sake of argument) a net positive that they do not believe is a net positive is user hostile. The question is not whether mobile apps are good things. (Everyone is free to have their own opinion about that.) The question is whether or not it's a good thing to force someone who does not want to…

No one is forced to do anything, its not a public utility. The company is free to implement their service in whatever way they want, and you as the consumer or user can ignore it and move on to something else. If you feel strongly about it, write them a letter. Sorry, what you're saying is not resonating at all, and frankly sounds a bit entitled to me. I don't think this conversation is productive for either of us. B…

"The company is free to implement their service in whatever way they want ..."

Yeah, and we're free to complain about it when they do so in a manner that's hostile to users.

Why are you so intent on defending this company against reasonable complaints about its product decisions?? If you don't agree with a particular complaint, just ignore it and move on. It's really strange how much you're inserting yourself into the conversation here though and shouting down and insulting everyone who says anything negative about the product.

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

#456

Post by rgbrenner »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #296
scarface74 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think that Microsoft is losing money on Office 365 subscriptions?

That's what the GP said, not me. "They're basically giving away services and throwing money at it to pad growth for Azure."

That's not what I said. This was a comparison with Dropbox. I was comparing drop box with one drive.

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

#457

Post by lazerwalker »

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

Sync.com

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

#458

Post by cevn »

smush wrote: post #231
throw7 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use syncthing.

TL;DR -> Please give Syncthing a try, it does just what it says on the tin and with no fuss once setup. In the beginning, there was the 3.5" floppy disk, trudged along in my backpack in its little box with the 4 blank ones (which only ever got used by the slackers who forgot their own), used for little notes on the single README.txt featuring a .LOG at the top so each time I opened it, Notepad would insert the time/d…

Oh my god, it's SO GOOD. I'm uninstalling Dropbox everywhere now. We're in the future of file sharing!!!!

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

#459

Post by wutbrodo »

arcturus17 wrote: post #425
wutbrodo wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been a fan of Yelp as either a service or a company, but the assumption that they used yelp to look up the phone number isn't warranted here. Yelp's whole value prop has always been reviews and discoverability, and you're just handwaving that away and claiming that the only relevant workflow here is googling a known restaurant after having made the decision to order and using Yelp's page simply to find the…

It’s absolutely warranted here because the article author mentions they are calling their favorite sushi restaurant.

Ha oops. I missed that. Thanks for the background

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

#460

Post by smsm42 »

Aeolun wrote: post #364
tempestn wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Something else" indeed. Recently a scam site popped up that copied the branding of our site, autotempest.com. (They registered autoStempest.com and copied our logos and such.) They claimed to be a dealership based in Texas, but were actually posting fake vehicles and having people wire them money (which they obviously kept). One of the things these scammers did to appear legit was set up a Yelp page with a bunch of…

What I do not understand is why nobody copied yelp with an ethical business model yet.

Scale effects? To be popular, you need large database. It took Yelp years to get there. It will take another company years too, but now their risk is much larger since there's Yelp already which dominates the field. So company founder has to get somebody to invest not in just developing a new field for years, but in developing for years a field where there's an entrenched and popular (even if shady) competitor. Ultimately, I guess, if Yelp continues to be shady, it will pop up, but may take a lot of time until it's useful.
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