[joonix]

A net negative force on the world? Seriously? How is that? I got good deals, businesses got to try a new marketing method, many did well, some poorly. No businesses were coerced or forced into offering a coupon on LS. I fail to see how they are a negative force or anything worse than a publisher like Yellow Pages selling ads.

[ryguytilidie]

If only this had been discussed thousands of times in hundreds of different forums...

Whether you want to talk about damage to local businesses or another company that VCs poured millions into with no return, its pretty hard to argue that this company did much good. You getting good deals and ignoring what was necessary to get them isn't really the metric by which we decide if a business is doing good or not. If you're comparing it to the Yellow Pages than that says it all really.

[lawnchair_larry]

If you really don't see how LivingSocial caused more problems than the Yellow Pages, I don't think we will be able to start a discussion.

Nobody was forced to buy those mortgages either, right?

[achompas]

To be fair to parent, they may not know about the terrible experience of a local business who works with Groupon, LS, or another daily deals site.

[jlgreco]

Oh, I don't know. Yellow Pages seems like a far more pervasive problem, even if they do lack the severity in harm. Yellow Pages litters their unwanted obsolete crap everywhere. Those coupon startups are worse than littering, but lack the reach.

[ttrreeww]

Many did poorly. Few did well. Groupon/LivingSocial was a classic pump and dump kind of business, only difference is Groupon reached IPO to dump it on your mutual funds.