Their specific mailing list isn't public, but the list of their customers is, inherently, and anyone can call and ask for the person in charge of coupons. And i

Their specific mailing list isn't public, but the list of their customers is, inherently, and anyone can call and ask for the person in charge of coupons. And it's not an either-or thing, so it's a trivial sale. Businesses will offer better deals through companies that cost less to use. Groupon's cut limits how good the deal can be for the customer, and is money that could be spent on more effective targeted advertising. Groupon is actually harder to use than traditional coupons, for business and consumer. With traditional coupons you take it in, or print it, or take a picture of it, and present it for your reward. With Groupon you have to put out money up front and businesses don't get it till later. Good for Groupon, not at all useful for anyone else. Buying a TV from amazon is a different type of purchase than buying a coupon, especially because many coupons are free. Coupon shoppers will subscribe to any list they see that offers a good deal. They aren't being attacked for not being profitable, they're being attacked for valuing themselves at over eleven billion dollars despite not having been out of the red, let alone healthily in the black. Their value, considered rationally, is what it would cost to technically recreate them, plus the value in their name and customer list. The later is available, the former is in the ballpark of $300K-$2M, and their name isn't worth $11 billion no matter how you look at it.