But they have a need: publish content for free because screw website and domains and servers and all that crap. They know how to facebook, they probably know they won't win a website award but their need is satisfied (come up on google for restaurant in x that does y). They are better served by million other things, but they know facebook. Check them out and you'll find they probably won't have a verifyed listing on google or tripadvisor.

There is a vast untapped market of digital semiliterate that only waits to be tapped. See also: medium. Why that and not wordpress.com? Because they speak the right language.

Your last sentence is interesting. Can you elaborate on what you mean by "speaking the right language"?

Well wordpress start describing itself as a hosting plarform, medium as a community of writers and readers. Two totally different target.

Yeah that makes sense!

I can't argue with stale format other than to say that if you're visiting restaurant websites wanting a unique browsing experience then I expect you're in an extreme minority. Would you happen to also be opposed to bootstrap?

As for poor information, I don't see how that's the result of Facebook. Plenty of restaurants neglect all sorts of information on their websites. Add in that plenty didn't bother with websites before, but now have a Facebook page, I'd say Facebook has drastically increased the amount of information available on restaurants.

Restaurants need opinions from customers to influence other customers. Tripadvisor, and a bit less Yelp, are the main tools in internet to promote their business.