I suspect that some aspect of Groupon is a Ponzi scheme In what way? Groupon has a clever model but their valuation is precarious because it's easily copied.

I suspect that some aspect of Groupon is a Ponzi scheme In what way? Groupon has a clever model but their valuation is precarious because it's easily copied. If anything I would say it is already past its peak. Not only are there the restaurant/teeth whitening/facial generalist competitors (many of them backed by newspapers that already have sales teams and business relationships), I've been seeing a lot of niche competitors appear as well, which really makes sense. The web is naturally distributed so there's no added barrier participating in multiple sites, especially if they're using a shared or common login platform like OpenId/OpenAuth.