Groupon is addicted to money, spending half a billion dollars a year to acquire new subscribers. Yet it now claims that it will kick the habit in 2013, reducing that spend to zero.
There is approximately one way they can effectively do this. That is: be acquired by Google.
Another approach might have been to think of some other way to grow than to indiscriminately acquire spambox signups in the hundreds of millions without pausing to assess profitability. But when you’re Groupon, “pausing,” even for a breath, is not on the agenda.