Well, folks, Yelp is at it again.

The company that turned every restaurant owner into a hostage negotiator and gave your cousin's dental practice an existential crisis has decided what the world really needs is more automated text messages from contractors you contacted once in 2019.

Yelp announced this week it's acquiring Hatch, an AI-powered "lead management platform," for $270 million in cash, plus another $30 million in employee retention payments. For those keeping score at home, that's roughly $300 million for technology that user reviews describe as "way too aggressive" and capable of generating "angry customers who kept on receiving notifications, even after an appointment was booked."

Reader, I am not making this up. This is the pitch.

CEO Jeremy Stoppelman called it "an important step" in Yelp's AI integration strategy. What he means is that Yelp has discovered something even more lucrative than holding local businesses hostage to star ratings: helping those same businesses annoy you into submission.

Here's how Hatch works, per its own marketing: It sends automated texts and emails to leads "until they respond."

That's not my characterization—that's the feature.

Day two text.

Day three email.

Day four, presumably, a drone hovering outside your window asking if you've really thought about that kitchen remodel.

Day five, they're inside your house.

The charitable interpretation is that this is "lead management." The honest interpretation is that Yelp just paid $300 million for a very sophisticated way to spam you about gutter cleaning.

And honestly? Respect. That's commitment.

Now, to be fair—and I'm legally obligated to say this—Hatch can be configured to be less aggressive. The company offers compliance guidance and opt-out protocols and all the things you'd expect from a platform trying very hard not to look like a robo-text cannon.

But as anyone who's ever received seventeen texts about their "car's extended warranty" can tell you, the existence of guardrails and the use of guardrails are two very different things.

The real tell is in Yelp's strategic logic.

The company says it's moving from "search and discovery" to "book and hire"—meaning they don't just want to help you find a plumber, they want to own the entire transaction. And what better way to close that loop than ensuring the plumber can text you relentlessly until you either hire them or throw your phone into the Pacific Ocean?

This is vertical integration, baby. The vertical is your sanity.

Stoppelman praised Hatch for "solving challenging lead management and communication pain points for services businesses." Translation: the pain point is that you, the consumer, have the audacity to ignore people trying to sell you things. Hatch solves this by making ignoring them slightly more difficult than before.

It's like if LinkedIn's "just following up!" energy became sentient and got Series B funding. Oh wait, that's exactly what this is.

Look, I get it. Lead conversion is hard. Following up is important. And there's a legitimate version of this technology that helps honest businesses stay in touch with genuinely interested customers. But when your acquisition target has a documented history of users apologizing to confused customers who couldn't figure out why they were still getting texts after already booking an appointment, maybe pump the brakes on the victory lap?

Just a thought! Just a small thought from someone who once got seven texts from a locksmith I called during an emergency three years ago!

The deal is expected to close in early February, at which point Hatch will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Yelp. This means the company that already knows which restaurants you've reviewed and which contractors you've searched for will now have an AI-powered system optimized for making sure those contractors never, ever stop contacting you.

Sleep tight.

Yelp's stock is probably fine. The home services vertical is probably thrilled. And somewhere, a guy who asked for a roofing estimate in November 2025 is about to receive his forty-seventh "just checking in!" text.

Progress™.

Meanwhile, the rest of us will be here, frantically texting STOP to numbers we don't recognize, praying to whatever god will listen that the AI respects opt-out requests.

Spoiler: The AI does not care about your boundaries. The AI has quarterly targets.

Welcome to the future. Yelp built it, and it won't stop texting you.