It seems like they are getting fewer checkins and some people I have heard refer to it as a dead site. I also noticed a few beers with only 1 or 2 checkins and even some beers missing from the site. Is this good for ratebeer or is this kind of site/app a thing of the past?
Doesnât seem like it. They recorded their billionth check-in in March.
Iâm not seeing any signs of Untappd slowing down. Old heavy users are still rating/ticking, Iâve noticed bunch of new users as well. Also during recent trips to Italy/Czechia/Belgium I had to add one or two beers and number of rates per beer is not comparable to RB. However I imagine whole pandemic thing did affect them heavily since their source of income are bars.
Even if things went south for UT I donât think it would help RB. Iâm not even sure whatâs going with this place or where itâs headed, but I wouldnât be too surprised if someone pulled the plug one day.
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Yeah obviously everyone is pretty in the dark about RB at this point with minimal communication from Joe and a big question mark about whether anyone else is even working on the site at this point.
That said with UT, while the scores are still useful (if you know what to look at), the fact that smoothie seltzers in the US are getting 4.5 averages sort of limits its use⊠maybe things are different in Europe where the beer/beverage culture has a different trajectory.
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I added a cider once before untapped & was damn proud.
This thread is just wishful thinking.
More recently Iâve been hearing some beer raters refer to UT as 'âkid stuffâ while Iâm on the road seeking new brewpubs.
Welp, it was always called âkid stuffâ by some, because in some aspects it very much is and even more so was. And thatâs partly why it actually got big enough not to fail Iâd guess for now.
Random example: Probably the best place in Brno nowadays, when it comes to tap + bottle selection as a whole, has a lively UT presence for ages. NOBODY on Ratebeer had apparently visited it because itâs far out of the center, added it some time ago, was the first one to rate the place here. Just looking at the page - they have checkins for 20+ different UT people in the last 2-3 days after I was there, including foreigners. Enough said. In the next place I visited in the same town, the brewer approached me after they read one of my taps. So, yeah, itâs very much lively.
I donât see RB picking up any significant number of active people without a) breaking away from ABI stigma (though thatâs not even that important now I guess) and b) working on features that are useful to beer-loving people. A ton of which were suggested multiple times over the years. Returning some that were taken away âto be brought back laterâ which never happened. But right now as it seems, with the state of suspended animation site development appears to be in, we donât know whatâs next. Sad how much time was wasted implementing and then fixing/removing insanely bad âfresh and newâ ideas while useful ones were being ignored / removed / brought back with less functionality - and fights to unfuck what was fucked - while RB had some wind in its developmental sailsâŠ
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In the next place I visited in the same town, the brewer approached me after they read one of my taps.
A bit of a non-sequitur but how did they know who you were?
Easy deduction game. Maybe 3 tables were taken overall inside the place. One of which was by me, the other by the brewer/owners and friends I guess, a third by some people by them. Put up pics of the beer on UT, so they could easily dismiss the other table by the background at least.
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That said, I see that Untappd is doing an event with Pabst Blue Ribbon. Any cries from hardcore craft beer justice warriors? Are they defacing their brewery entries and cancelling their venue subscriptions? Is Sam C already writing a hysterical proclamation about such a terrible betrayal? 
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Maybe, but beer on the internet is mostly try-hards chasing their tails. âWow, you still go there? I go to this other place, you probably havenât even heard of it and drink the cool beers.â Self defeating of course. My favourite is the abandonment of TalkBeer because users werenât chill enough in enjoying lambic, so a new, casual site was set up where lambic was put in sunhats (gosh, not those po-faced baskets) and drunk with junk food and photographed until the causualness was no longer apparent and only status anxiety remained.
no
From the very beginnings Untappd had a badge which required you to try Coors, Bud and Miller.
But I donât think any of the people here (or beer enthusiasts in general) give two cents about PBR. PBR is smaller than Boston Beer Company, holds about 2-3% of the US beer market (according to the sources I was able to find) and is not known for atrocities against beer culture. For comparison Coors Light holds 8% of beer sales in US, whole Miller is at 26% and AB-Inbev at 45%. Also they are not present on the international market so they go under the radar outside of US.
They were actually advertising Goose Island - so AB Inbev, while RB was already purchased by ZX. Says it all.
Iâm just making fun of the hypocrisy and / or stupidity of those who presented them as more âcraftâ than Ratebeer, while their business model was very much non-craft (not shitting on it, it is and was smart) and they worked and work with macros whenever they could/can.
I would say first and foremost they are a business. They will occasionally do business with macro breweries, but doesnât look like they live off it. They did way more business with craft breweries, establishments and the Brewers Association itself. And unlike RB they are not dependent on AB Inbevs peanuts.
Of course, but thatâs not countering anything Iâve written.
They are, as you say, first and foremost a business, in their essence corporate, âindustrialâ in their approach to the market. Which ensured their success. While RB was independent, enthusiast-driven for its first 16-17 years - almost âafraidâ to ask their users for money - and never asking breweries and places for money to use RB, supporting them always. And thatâs why it was forced to stagnate, then either shut down or lose its independence after no âbetterâ options showed up. It remains enthusiast-driven to a large extent despite ZX/ABI paying for the development at some points and maybe right now for the hosting and Joeâs wage. Maybe. All hysterical bullshit about ABI stealing every RB userâs soul and suchlike (etc.) that was shat out in 2017/18 turned out to be laughably untrue and people here are still majorly supporting their local craft breweries over any macro, let alone ABI/ZX who appears now to have played with the toy a little, got bored and threw it to the side. And that might be partly the reason of its potential demise. While UT, unlike what the thread title says wonât. Nothingâs black & white.
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Marko, the notorious Ratebeerian from the old country, been around since 2004 with over 10,000 ticks! A ratebeer founding father?
Thatâs probably true. But like nothingâs black and white itâs also true that RB never bothered (or maybe did and failed?) to create a product which would be self sustainable so they donât have to ask charity from breweries but to offer something to breweries/users/establishments.
Some people refused to support and contribute to ABIâs toy. Some didnât care (enough) about that.
The difference was in the approach and the push. A lot of features UT draws money from were readily available on RB, mostly for free, in some cases just needing a âpaint jobâ and maybe a tiny redesign. Where RB failed was pushing, marketing and monetizing that. And Iâm talking starting even about the time before UT was a thing. No charity was ever asked for Iâd guess too. UT is / was literally pestering venues they see get a lot of traffic by phone to become verified venues for a sum thatâs insane by RB standards. And it works. For UT and often/sometimes the venue too.
And one may look at it this way - they created a product that was attractive enough for an ABI subsidiary to buy and invest further money in. 
People who just refused to support and contribute to RB post-purchase and left cold turkey at that moment have my full respect. People who left during the time RB was nearly unusable have my full understanding. Hysteria mongers and shit spitters and wannabe craft justice warriors (overwhelmingly with zero awareness of RBâs past and significance for the latter) have absolutely none of either.
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And that difference in approach is basically difference between business and group of enthusiasts.
Understood, however canât remember there were too many people in the latter group.
