My Review of Yelp

I used to use yelp to find literally everything: restaurants, bars, dentist, church, but I've stopped relying on it because I realize it's really flawed in its ratings. Here are the reasons in which I think yelp is flawed.

• People are way too critical of higher-end restaurants. Just because you're paying $80 for a bottle of wine doesn't mean servers need to lick your shoes. Most people who review restaurants on yelp are people who don't go to nice restaurants all that often - and expect way too much just because they are paying a bit more than what they are used to. Literally I have seen reviews such as: "server didn't say bye... MINUS ONE STAR." Restaurants in the $$$-$$$$ price ranges are skewed down atleast 1 star due to this.
• Hole in the wall food joints have way too high ratings. $1 fish taco with ingredients from unknown sources does not deserve close to a 5 star rating. People on yelp also tend to think the more hole in the wall it is, the more "authentic" it is.
• Because there's an overwhelming percentage of Asians on yelp - ramen, pho, udon, korean food, etc. ratings tend to skewed higher. Don't get me wrong, I love Asian food - but not all asian food places are amazing and deserving of 5 stars.
• Esoteric services tend to have the highest reviews. It's all about supply & demand I guess. For example, iPhone repair places all average a near 5 star reviews. It's because some guy in the back of their basement replaced their iPhone screen with a dingy digitizer from China worth $0.05 for $100, when the Apple store charges $200. The service they are selling is iPhone repair. If he fixes your phone, he is simply doing his job - nothing more. These people are way too estatic about their iPhones functioning again that they fail to realize this is exactly what they are paying for. Compared to the Apple store, obviously it's going to be cheaper. But somehow people don't realize this and just give a 5 star review to any shitty quality job that anyone does.
• Another rant about esoteric services.... People just don't have anything else to compare to. i.e. I got my Marc Jacobs bag restitched in NY - completely redone for $100. In LA, this one guy boast himself as the best bag repair service in the area, and charged me $150 to put a patch over my bag. Didn't even attempt to restitch it and said he would charge $500 do to so. Somehow on yelp - everyone thinks that this guy is a god and gives him 5 stars for service that I can probably do myself - and charges way too much. Ignorance is bliss I suppose?
• New or exclusive bars / lounges / clubs are never on yelp. Yelp is for the masses - not for the exclusive. Also, most clubs are reviewed by the B&T crowd. I know B&T crowd is a term that only applies to NY as it stands for Bridge & Tunnel (i.e. people from the outer boroughs, CT, or NJ going into the city to party). But I use the term B&T crowd can be used generically as "Bougie & Trashy."
• I guess this is an underlying problem that I have alluded to in my previous bullet points, but the frequent users of yelp (i.e. the "Elite Users") are not people that I would trust in taste of restaurants / bars / clubs / services / etc. Most of them are people who spend the majority of their day (albiet - some while they are bored at work) "managing" their yelp account - so they have the most creative review of the restaurant they went to the night before. Or if they have the best pictures on their profile. I'm certainly not like that - so can't really agree with their choices of places they frequent.

If I were give yelp a rating - I would give it 3 stars. Mehh - I've seen better.