I root for startups that empower people and open up new opportunities, not for ones that have found a loophole in the human psyche and exploit it to the maximum.
It's also a brilliant business model for a recession and financial crisis. In most instances it's win-win-win:
- Groupon makes money
- people get huge discounts, and save money if it was something they were planing to buy anyway.
- businesses both make money (assuming they worked out the math of the deal correctly before accepting it) and gain huge exposure.
I suppose the only losers are wherever people would have spent that money had they not bought the groupon, but that's hard to quantify (bought the same thing at a higher price? bought something else? saved it?).
I can't think of many more innovative business models for a distressed economy.
That on top of the exploitative nature of many (most?) Groupon users, where they buy a Groupon and never revisit the business after they use their discount.
Groupon is a great business, but some concerns about the quality of the leads arise. We need the Glengarry leads.
I think most urban-ish places with a capitalized youth are a ripe market for coupon-type businesses.