News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut. Parent comment

Re:Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub C... by MereInterest on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @11:48PM (#20631849)
That seems entirely circular. The mobile website is poorly made, so people use the mobile app, so the mobile website is neglected. I can understand why the mobile app gains dominance after the cycle starts. The question is more why this cycle starts.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub C... by eridius on Wednesday August 07, 2019 @02:29AM (#20632400)
People are going to use the mobile app regardless. It's the first-class experience for mobile. People don't use the app because the website is poor; people simply use the app.

Or to put it another way, Yelp would be rightfully lambasted for not having a mobile app. Having a mobile app is table stakes for a site like Yelp. And if you've got all this engineering effort going towards a mobile app, why double your workload by also building a first-class mobile site? The mobile site just needs to be functional enough to satisfy the basic needs of casual users.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub C... by MereInterest on Thursday August 08, 2019 @12:29PM (#20645977)
I think that was my main annoyance when Google removed the "merge tabs and apps" feature in 2016. With that feature, a shortcut to a webpage was a first-class experience that worked nicely with the app switcher.
[ Parent | on HN ]