1135 Yelp

I ignore Yelp: in fact, I fastidiously avoid it and its cohorts. I hate the whole idea behind user feedback apps: it gives inordinate power to narcissists & exploiters. I come by this revulsion through personal experience: I have been negatively impacted by reviewer’s comments to such an extent that I could not move forward with what I was trying to do. These people were intent on hurting me for ideological reasons, and that was before Cancel culture: it’s got to be 10X worse now. Yelp also highlights the human weakness for spoilers: 1 bad review out of 3 good ones gets all the credibility, and haters know that. For reasons of evil intent or simply economic advantage, unscrupulous people will sabotage their enemies & competitors. Several cases have actually gone to Civil court because of this exact thing, and the culprits found accountable for their intentional malevolent behavior, but those are very, very few: most review-bombers never suffer one iota of regret for their actions. Not to mention the elephant in that room that people like different things, or take benign issues personally. What does democracy even have to do with restaurant & bar reviews anyway?