I think the opposite is true. The hardware is almost a gimmick to push what is otherwise a potentially powerful service.
The theory behind this app is that individuals are now empowered to take credit cards for anything they previously would have had to take a cash or check for, which is increasingly important in our society where credit cards are becoming the normal way to pay for things.
As for the hardware, it's a pretty old trick. Though I don't know any of the specifics of this device, you don't need to look any further than your graphing calculator to see the idea in use.
Re:Squareup
by ivankirigin on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @02:11PM
(#970424)
You're 100% correct. Hardware is cool, but the merchant services side is what makes Square awesome
How is that different from PayPal? To me the hardware is what Square is about.
Re:Squareup
by ivankirigin on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @06:19PM
(#971052)
Yes, paypal does something similar for online payments. I'm pretty sure the lag for merchants is longer.
Note that PayPal was revolutionary and is worth many billions of dollars - largely because they could handle the fraud this kind of configuration causes.
Thinking out loud: I assume it reads the strips and converts the information to tones - but I would love to read more about it. I just want to plug it into my computer and see what comes up in Audacity when I scan a card.
I think this device/feature overwhelms the service as a whole actually.