Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 461 posts

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

#61

Post by habosa »

Yelp 5 years ago was a truly valuable service. You could go anywhere (in America) and find good food.

Then they lost focus. The app has not improved an ounce since then (seriously why is 'open now' not a default filter) and they've spent a lot of time doing shady things or complaining about other companies. They've tried to get into reservations, delivery, and non-food services but with half-assed attempts at each. They also did a really bad job at maintaining a healthy reviewer community (Google has done much better).

It's a shame because I don't think any other app took the lead here. Yelp just walked backwards into the pack.

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

#62

Post by libria »

sundayedition wrote: post #5

I'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.

The Google alternative to Yelp is Local Guides: https://maps.google.com/localguides

You can earn points and level up for your contributions (reviews, photos), but they don't have anywhere near the incentive structure as Yelp yet.

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

#64

Post by rcpt »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #36
tfha wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you're looking for good restaurants in a city, TripAdvisor is probably your best bet. It does have the downside of terrible location-based search though (what decent restaurants are within 50m of my current position?).

Also chowhound but it's not always up to date

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

#65

Post by nemosaltat »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #24
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…

https://www.yelp-support.com/article/Does-Yelp-extort-small-... I've kind of gotten tired of diving into the whole "yelp extorted my brother's cousin's friend's coworker's business for better ratings" anecdotal story schtick so I'm just going to link the above -- or are you suggesting they're getting away with lying on official communication? If yelp is altering reviews for paying clients, please show the evidence as…

Thanks for sharing this. I use Yelp for client lunches because I rarely know the area well, and it easily identifies restaurants that deliver. I always felt kind of slimy because of anecdotal rumors. I may have even perpetuated those rumors in passing. Now I feel a bit better, and I have some resources to back it up.

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

#66

Post by pavel_lishin »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #49
pavel_lishin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> www.big-bad.wolf > Does the Big Bad Wolf blow down houses? > "Of course I don't!"

In that story, the piggies couldn't file class action lawsuits against the wolf. If sites could lie without consequence in official business capacity, why would the average privacy policy take 18 minutes to read? If you opened the link, you'd also see a link to an independent scientific study on the subject: http://people.hbs.edu/mluca/papers%20on%20ris/fakeittillyoum... Perhaps the issue is more with folks falling f…

> In that story, the piggies couldn't file class action lawsuits against the wolf. If sites could lie without consequence in official business capacity, why would the average privacy policy take 18 minutes to read?

I'm low on sleep today, so I'm honestly having a hard time parsing this argument. Are you saying that Yelp and other businesses are sufficiently afraid of class-action lawsuits that they're not willing to do shady things? If this were the case, we'd reach one of those dumb school-book economic equilibriums where no class-action lawsuits would take place. Businesses evaluate the risk of doing things, balancing profit against loss. Exposure to a lawsuit is just another number in that calculation.

> independent scientific study

That study is looking at whether fraudulent reviews are being added to the platform, not whether Yelp is calling up businesses and offering to remove bad reviews in exchange for money, which was my understanding of the original complaints against Yelp.

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

#67

Post by slenk »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #49
pavel_lishin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> www.big-bad.wolf > Does the Big Bad Wolf blow down houses? > "Of course I don't!"

In that story, the piggies couldn't file class action lawsuits against the wolf. If sites could lie without consequence in official business capacity, why would the average privacy policy take 18 minutes to read? If you opened the link, you'd also see a link to an independent scientific study on the subject: http://people.hbs.edu/mluca/papers%20on%20ris/fakeittillyoum... Perhaps the issue is more with folks falling f…

This HBS Associate Prof just seems like a pro-yelper. He has another paper about how ads on yelp really work!

Hmm, I wonder why Yelp would keep mentioning him.

https://blog.yelp.com/2016/10/academic-study-shows-yelp-ads-...

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

#68

Post by dhritzkiv »

icanhasfay wrote: post #44

(Serious Q) What other good alternatives are out there for Yelp?

I use Foursquare and really like it (compared to Yelp). As it's crowd-sourced, the data can be iffy (missing hours, phone numbers) in some lower density regions, but that hasn't been a huge drawback.

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

#69

Post by duxup »

sundayedition wrote: post #5

I'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.

When I used to use Yelp, I found the reviews are so hard to wade though.

So many:

- I had a bad time .. once.

- This restaurant isn't as good as this other place that is twice as expensive.

- We had to wait a "long time".

- The food sucked (because they don't like the kind of food they serve...).

- This place sucks and you should go to this other completely different place.

Post reply on HN