[maemilius]

NGL, I'm not really sure why this is such a big deal. i understand it being done without the owners' express consent - that would piss me off too - but Yelp is just trying to help. I'd totally understand a "well, thanks, I guess, but what the fuck?" attitude than the vitriol the person at the end seems to be spouting.

Am I just missing something? Why wouldn't these businesses want people to help them out in this? Is it just the lack of notification and consent gathering?

[ProAm]

You should never partake in financial activities of a business you are not involved with or have a relationship with. Its horribly unethical.

Especially when you spend so much time to build an image, a brand, a relationship with your customers, it automatically be associated with a company with such an unethical past, poor brand, etc.... They are ruining years of hard work by the owners without asking them for any sort of consent? I would never want to be associated with Yelp, way more damage to my brand than help.

[pepe56]

I mean imagine you have a bar and although you needed to close it due to covid19 you are still good financially. If all of a sudden someone else decided to ask your customers for money because you might need it, wouldn’t that be weird? I wonder why such things aren’t just opt-in. I mean it’s a really nice and good thing, but Yelp proactively activating it makes me believe they are bad people and have some kind of revenue/fee share model in place.

[DevKoala]

Just one example: Some places in San Francisco charge their customers for a membership already. Having Yelp do this completely kills the trust your customers have in you.

Yelp does not own the relationship between businesses and customers. I don't understand why this isn't obvious. Hell is full of good intentions.

[zentiggr]

> Hell is full of good intentions.

Hell is full of 15% to GoFundMe without disclosure, and requiring multiple pieces of PII to opt-out.

[throwanem]

Optimistic of you, to assume good intentions here.

[andrewflnr]

It puts the owner of a for-profit business in the position of looking like they are looking for handouts from their customers. Someone who is strongly against that (on grounds of either ethics or pride IMO) would be justifiably offended, if not quite to the level of vitriol in the headline.