In this episode of tech companies behaving badly, I would like to call out Yelp for forcing users to download their mobile app. I am 90% certain that I was able to get full experience on mobile Yelp in the past. Now it forces me to download a mobile app if I want to view all of the reviews or search through review history.
For example, here is me trying to research a restaurant:
At the bottom of the page, I am prompted with a button to view more reviews. But when I click on it, I actually get redirected to the app store to download the Yelp app.
I am able to get full experience though, by switching over to Desktop view, as indicated by pagination.
I am not sure who at Yelp though that limiting user’s engagement with their mobile app was a good idea…