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  1. The Hustle6/9/1911 min
    49 reads14 comments
    9.6
    The Hustle
    49 reads
    9.6
    You must read the article before you can comment on it.
    • Florian3 years ago

      For some reason the title kept me away from reading this article as I saw it climb the ranking on here. Now that it’s AOTD I figured I should give it a read and wow it was worth it! I learned a lot and will see online reviews from a new perspective.

      • ChetD3 years ago

        I tend to discard the one stars as disgruntled blue meanies and five stars as fanboys. I look for those that provide some pluses and some decencies. Not perfect methodology I am sure marketers have hacked right through that as well.

        • Florian3 years ago

          Makes sense to me. I’m not someone who writes reviews. The only time I’m emoted to write one is when I’m frustrated with something so I assume that review pages are heavily biased

    • caleb3 years ago

      got to love snarky ambitious business owners.

      • Florian3 years ago

        The best Italian food I had was in a restaurant without menu and a chef who abused customers that refused to accept cheese on his pasta. It was like eating with your Italian grandfather you never knew you had

    • ChetD3 years ago

      Old school newspapers used to claim that they had a firewall between editorial and advertising department. From being in the restaurant business we knew this was not entirely true. If you wanted their restaurant reviewer to visit any time soon it always helped to signup for an ad campaign.

      I guess Yelp just entirely dispensed with that charade of sorts.

      • Alexa3 years ago

        good point. I'd mostly prefer out in the open, bold-faced extortion over pretending you weren't but...not extorting a business at all would be pretty cool too haha. I guess the difference is the democratization of a reviewer, you could likely opt out of a reviewer visiting but you can't opt-out of being on Yelp

        • SEnkey3 years ago

          There is something to this, an idea of cultural betters really knowing something about a subject and being able to make suggestions. Experts, that is what we called them. They could recommend a good restaurant or movie or wine depending on their expertise. We've democratized expertise, not sure that was all bad, but it also wasn't all good. Sadly, it did come with a healthy dose of extortion! Interesting points ChetD and Alexa.

    • aussak3 years ago

      This is great!

    • SEnkey3 years ago

      Fun and entertaining article.

      In the aftermath of his press, he’s become a celebrity in the restaurant scene — a Davide who went up against a tech Goliath and emerged self-empowered.

      “I’m the only person who beat them at their own game,” he says. “I left a black mark on that company. I trolled them. I humiliated them. And now, they avoid me like the plague.”

      • Karenz
        Scribe
        3 years ago

        This is a fantastic article. What guts this guy has, creativity, dark humor, integrity. We could use a few politicians with his boldness and dedication to values.

    • loundytampa3 years ago

      I’ve read countless articles like this , I DESPISE YELP-the downfall of modern dining. I’m so glad I’m in an industry (packaged liquor goods to-go) where my yelp review doesn’t mean anything.
      I’ve seen waitresses/chefs almost on the brink of tears over a bad review. I refuse to ever visit their site... ever

    • jbuchana3 years ago

      I'm glad someone is standing up to Yelp. I learned years ago that their service is useless to the consumer as well as businesses.

    • Alexa3 years ago

      fabulous article. Yelp deserves all the trolling coming at them.

      I recall when I was in the corporate world we went through a major merger. Two 700 location healthcare businesses combined. A Yelp salesman tried to charge us hundreds of thousands of dollars to update the listings after our merger.

      My director put it best "if they want to have the right information on their site why should we pay for it?". It was absurd, and pretty gross how they went about it. The calls truly felt like extortion the way they spoke to us about what would happen if we didn't take them up on their offer.

      I have nothing but bad tales from both corporate and small business days. they are like the mafia, it's gross business practices.