Angie's List is less useful than it should be. It seems that the reviews are largely promotion-driven (i.e., vendors that offer coupons get reviews, others get no reviews).

Angie’s List lost me with their user-hostile behavior. For example, cancelling an account required a phone call, also you can’t change your membership location at will, so if you spend any time outside of your local area, they didn’t let you see information for other locales.

Homeadvisor is just not a good source for service providers, especially when compared to Yelp. Angie's list is a little better, but Yelp still beats it. Maybe it's because Angie's List started as a paid service which limits the number of reviewers, even though it slightly improves review authenticity

Obligatory TripAdvisor fake restaurant story.[1] Not that it means TripAdvisor doesn't provide value, it's just a wonderful story. :)

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861136

FYI, Zagat's parent company is Google/Alphabet.

> FYI, Zagat's parent company is Google/Alphabet.

No, it's not. Google sold Zagat in March to The Infatuation.

I forgot about that! I've been using Zagat since back in the day when you filled out a form for some city you were familiar with and they sent you a free restaurant guidebook for that city in exchange. I still think they're the best guide (except possibly for the local newspaper site) for people who have a somewhat foodie orientation. But they only cover a relatively small number of US cities.

I stand corrected.