That's just semantics. There are three parties involved: Groupon, end customers and merchants. It was pretty clear who marciovm123 and I were referring as the customers in the posts.
There was some insight that was muddied by the confrontational language, and the semantic ambiguity introduced by marciovm123. There are two interesting issues:
(1) repeat customers to the merchants, which they obtain via groupon.
(2) merchants who use groupon and do repeat business with them.
melvinram was talking about (1), mattmanser was talking about (2).
"they're selling other people's products" -- as every reseller does. And who do they sell them to? Their customers.
Customers pay you. You pay producer. That makes you a merchant. You get a really, really good price from the producer? And sell it really cheap to your customers? That makes you a discounter.
I know it's 2011 and we live in the future, but it's not a new paradigm, and it hasn't reversed any relationships as we normally think of them. Discounters have existed forever.
"That's just semantics" is a common way of saying "you're arguing over semantics instead of the point." When arguing semantics is disguised as a genuine rebuttal, it's a fallacy.
If I say the sky is blue, and you assert the sky has no color, you're not actually contradicting my assertion you're disagreeing about the meaning of the word 'sky'. That's arguing semantics instead of addressing the point.
Yes, by "that's just semantics", I meant that it doesn't matter which party you call the customer. The thrust of the argument is still that Groupon is screwing over merchants and that I'm not convinced that merchants will continue to work with Groupon.