But the complaints are mostly that Yelp's policy is inconsistent. Its review filter removes good reviews and keep bad reviews, at times, and the customer service is terrible. And the ratings are subjective and mostly useless and still used everywhere on the site regardless.
The same applies to Google/YouTube, Amazon, etc. though, so I'd say you're just seeing the availability bias; there been a fair number of positive success stories about YouTube, Amazon, etc. posted on HN whereas business owners on Yelp are too small audience-wise to get a lot of traction.
The only real competitor to Yelp is Google; maybe Google boosted up negative news stories on Yelp but it could just as easily be the newspapers themselves fanning fake controversy.
But the complaints are mostly that Yelp's policy is inconsistent. Its review filter removes good reviews and keep bad reviews, at times, and the customer service is terrible. And the ratings are subjective and mostly useless and still used everywhere on the site regardless.
The same applies to Google/YouTube, Amazon, etc. though, so I'd say you're just seeing the availability bias; there been a fair number of positive success stories about YouTube, Amazon, etc. posted on HN whereas business owners on Yelp are too small audience-wise to get a lot of traction.
The only real competitor to Yelp is Google; maybe Google boosted up negative news stories on Yelp but it could just as easily be the newspapers themselves fanning fake controversy.