The always excellent Ben Parr of Mashable on the recent struggles of daily deal sites:

That’s not to say daily deals won’t be sticking around for a long time — clearly there is a business in it — but when two major players [Facebook and Yelp] withdraw from the space and its biggest player [Groupon] experiences a 50% traffic decline, it’s a clear sign that the daily deals market is no longer in its heyday.

My wife and I were just recently discussing how these daily emails from these deal sites are getting more annoying than useful. Also, for the most part, we only buy deals when it’s a place we already go, as opposed to places to try.

I have been saying for a while that I don’t think this deal sites can maintain popularity forever, just because they are only as good as tomorrow’s deal. Based on the fact that most of the places that show on these deal sites are places I have never heard of, my guess is that they are places either desperate for business or new. I sense that many of them are finding these deal sites not to be that helpful either.