And I always saw Groupon as a gamble on the quality of your business. There's one local restaurant that I never would have tried if it hadn't offered a Groupon deal. But it did, and I did, and I liked it a lot and went back for several full-price meals since then.
@PopularDemand I agree. It's also the point of many retail coupons but those extreme couponers seem to get stuff they don't really need. Instead of just giving it away, it requires consumer buy in because it makes you use part of your own money
I'm vaguely aware that there are some posts online about how offering a Groupon was the worst decision people ever made, but as far as I'm concerned that's exclusively a problem for business owners.
@Changeling Heh, that used to happen to me with CampusFood. I spent thousands of dollars on getting food delivered while in university, and spent more sometimes than intended just so I could use my CampusFood coupons. I imagine everyone won in that situation, except for my wallet.
@mootinator That's a bad move on his part. While you're on campus they can charge you whatever they want, just like any other place where you're part of a captive audience.
@TimStone Mine too. I think it's to be expected, really. They also offered the "four crates of Snapple" rule one year and closed that loophole right quick the next.
@PopularDemand That's what happened in my case too, heh. They were like "Yeah...we're not going to do that." So instead, the students just cleaned out the stores of individual bottles toward the end of the year. They eventually wised up and put a maximum item limit per purchase.
Meaning, I went to get the food I thought I'd paid for the following semester, and convinced the pres. I wouldn't have entered the contract had I not misunderstood the terms. And that the misunderstanding was completely reasonable.
@TimStone That's still not too bad. Mine went to a "block" system where blocks had no cash value and could only be used to buy meals, where every eatery defined a meal in its own way (typically an entree and a side and a drink). But by then I was an upperclassman and had moved to an apartment and didn't care.
But still, while they have you in their no-competition economic Twilight Zone, it would be wrong for them to not screw you, from a purely financial standpoint. Of course there are other factors in the real world to consider, but money is a big motivator.
I think ultimately, most people felt like they were essentially paying for the convenience of eating on campus and/or decided they had more important things to do than grouse about the meal plan all the time.
Of course this all comes with the caveat that every university has a different sytem/contract, despite the fact that they have similarities, so our experiences are non-transferrable. And now I go back to figuring out how to obfuscate my URLs.
@mootinator Ah, I didn't have that option. My school inflated the prices for people paying cash.
I initially thought that you meant that you didn't feel the food was good enough for the price you paid.
@Jez Actually your question appears to be about emulator recommendations, which I assume is off-topic under the umbrella of the [game-rec] discussion. (@badpssockpuppet Is that right?)
I fully support the clause of the SU FAQ that states that shopping/buying recommendations are off-topic. I'm a little confused about its scope, though.
Does it apply to questions that ask people to suggest free, open-source applications? That's not technically buying, but it's equivalent to a sh...
The network does not support "shopping rec" questions. That means "which one should I get" or "what is the best tool of all in the world for this problem"
the area51 beta comments that 15 a day is healthy :-)
so really we need to decide whether we want high-volume question sites or low-volume, more specific questions. it seems to be that SO did well with the former
well im just throwing it out there. the voting mentality is wrong. i dont know how you change it, but i doubt Jeff encouraging people to vote questions down helps.
