I see echoes of the RIAA here. Artists told they are entitled to income, but have to sign up, spend money, register, and then get told "oh, the algorithm said you get cents"

I suspect Yelp is going to struggle to show financial transparency on this, and has a future-audit headache if they don't handle this well. The funds are very probably a liability on yelp's books, because the intent is clear: its not for them. If they don't disburse, they have a problem.