Because he's disappointed they've entered this market, are also taking big fees and encouraging daily deal 'best practice' that are actually bad when running a daily deal.

It seems his point is that when it was just a bunch of random startups, it was obvious that this was a shade-ball kind of business. But now that Google is in the space, it makes the entire concept seem legitimate.

(FWIW, I disagree with this, but I think it's what the article is trying to say. My thought on this is, "if the only way to get someone to come to your business is to give them free stuff, what's the point?")