I think this is missing the point. Businesses like four-square/yelp/blogs/social media/etc exist not to stroke anybody's ego, they exist to let users have their friends or random strangers stroke their egos.

Complaining that a business isn't stroking your ego should tell the business that they aren't making it easy enough for your friends to stroke your ego.

Facebook does this brilliantly. My friend bakes a pie and then myself an a ton of other people pile on and tell them it looks good, tasty, when are they making me one, etc.... Facebook doesn't stroke my friend's ego, facebook makes it ridiculously easy for "friends" to stroke my friend's ego.