After 10 years, Yelp gave my app 4 days

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Yelp API cutoff and notice period

  • Many agree Yelp is within its rights to end free API access, but see the 4‑day (effectively 1‑business‑day) shutdown threat as unprofessional and hostile.
  • Others argue “free means no guarantees” and say relying on a free API for a paid app was always risky.
  • Several developers report receiving the same form email, often with the same line about “higher than other developers,” which some call misleading given their tiny usage.
  • Later, Yelp reportedly extended access by 90 days and apologized, after backlash. One commenter notes Yelp’s own terms mention a 10‑day notice period, which the initial email violated.

Economics and pricing

  • The app in question made $2,000 total over 10 years (467 copies), with <200 API calls/day.
  • Yelp’s shared pricing deck showed a base fee around $229–$299/month, making the app clearly unprofitable to continue.
  • Other developers say Yelp quoted “thousands per month.”
  • A separate public pricing page suggests much cheaper per‑call rates, creating confusion about tiers; Yelp reportedly did not clarify.

Risk of building on third‑party APIs

  • Strong consensus: basing a core product on a single external API—especially a free one—is a major business risk (“digital sharecropping”).
  • Multiple stories describe products killed or badly harmed by sudden changes from Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
  • Suggested mitigations: contracts with notice clauses, fallbacks, aggregators, self‑hosted data, or avoiding non‑replaceable dependencies entirely.

API monetization, AI, and “enshittification”

  • Many see this as part of a broader trend: early openness to attract developers, then tightening APIs once platforms are big.
  • A common theory is that Yelp (like Reddit) wants to capture value from AI training and bulk data access, making free/open APIs too “leaky.”
  • Commenters connect this to “enshittification”: shifting value away from users and partners toward short‑term revenue.

Scraping and legal issues

  • Some suggest replacing the API with HTML scraping or user‑side tools; others say stakes are too low or ToS/legal risk too high.
  • There’s debate over legality: references to CFAA, specific scraping cases, and the distinction between logged‑out public pages vs. bypassing explicit revocation.
  • Technical downsides cited: fragile parsers, captchas, cat‑and‑mouse with anti‑bot systems, ongoing maintenance.

Perceptions of Yelp and ecosystem

  • Many express longstanding distrust of Yelp: alleged pay‑to‑play behavior, extortion‑like sales tactics, dark‑pattern UX, and review gaming.
  • Several dislike Yelp’s integration in Apple Maps and hope Apple phases it out; some note Apple’s own ratings system is emerging.
  • Some say Yelp is still useful in the US, but weak or outdated in many other countries.

Broader lessons and proposals

  • Lessons drawn: avoid single points of failure; don’t promise “forever access” when you depend on others; subscriptions may better match ongoing API costs.
  • A few call for regulation (e.g., mandatory multi‑month API shutdown notice) or public/commons‑oriented alternatives (open data, public-good trusts).