Here's my quite speculative thinking on the whole mess, admittedly also without having followed it in much detail. It's not worth your time chasing such elusiv

Here's my quite speculative thinking on the whole mess, admittedly also without having followed it in much detail. It's not worth your time chasing such elusive bargains, unless your time is not worth a lot. (Exception, the "excitement of the hunt". See Atlantic City, Las Vegas, etc.) If your time is not worth a lot, you're not going to be buying much (no resources). I.e. you're a low value acquisition as a customer. (And if you're into the "excitement of the hunt", then you're not too interested in settling down with a particular merchant, are you?) It eventually follows that success for Groupon consists of promoting itself, not its customers' (the businesses contracting campaigns) long term interests. (Once again, the site's users are the product, not the customers. And while they may be nice enough people, they are not a good product.) Also, users (the merchant's customers) associate their success with Groupon, not the contracting merchant. One-off bargains don't build customer loyalty. P.S. Having now read the brief, linked article, I speculate further than an overwhelmed venue may actually be counter-productive; shoppers stick it out to get their bargain, but tell themselves, "Man, what a pain. I'm never coming back here again."