Groupon Is Laying Off 1,100, Shutters Operations in 7 Countries
I'll be honest, I know Groupon and its ilk are terrible business, but as a user of the service I've had lots of fun exploring activities and restaurants that I literally would never have bothered with or known about. In the last few weeks I've taken a Scuba lesson, a Horse Riding lesson, an intro to art class, found a couple new amazing sandwich shops. I took an amazing trip to Ireland for something like 50% off the lowest rate we could find, and it forced us to explore virtually the entire country since the package had us in different castles every couple nights. I've visited some oddball museums I hadn't bothered with before.I would have probably not done almost any of these things, or been more judicious in what I went to. I've found some new things that I'll be returning to, and some things that I won't.As a customer, these kinds of services are amazing. And really all they're doing is centralizing good deals. A less "grow fast and explode like a Unicorn" business model would probably make it work better for participating businesses.