[spyhi]

> Yelp seems to be the superior product since it has more reviews while having no financial benefit from manipulating reviews.

This is a dubious claim.

There have been periodic blowups about Yelp offering to manipulate how reviews are presented for money. [1][2] Yelp portrays this as advertising [3], like putting a "favorite" review "above the fold" so to speak, but many business owners consistently tell the same story about extortion over negative reviews.

I never paid it much attention before, but recently someone I personally know mentioned that her boss (at the time) was paying to remove negative Yelp reviews, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Point is, even if they aren't directly deleting negative reviews, reviews are their main product and pressure over negative reviews seems to be at the very least a sales tactic, so don't be so sure they have no financial benefit from manipulating at least certain aspects of reviews--it's not inconceivable.

[1] https://thenextweb.com/insider/2009/02/20/yelp-remove-bad-re... [2] https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-filter-positive-rev... [3] https://www.quora.com/Does-Yelp-remove-negative-reviews-in-e...