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Squareup

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Re: Squareup

#71

Post by natch »

vaksel wrote: post #37

This sounds like a money grab business to me. They'll launch, make a couple hundred mil, then they'll get hit with fraud, a ton of people will lose money, and they'll be forced to shut down, since noone will want to use the service, in fear of getting defrauded. Since there is no barrier to entry, it'll be like 2 weeks before someone comes out with a black market version, that will look exactly the same, but instead…

It looks to me like the iPhone is the user's own iPhone, in which case the user will have installed the software on the phone side themselves. So I guess the flow would be: user starts software; merchant takes phone and plugs in device; software checks device and makes sure it is authentic; then UI presents signature page to user.

What is the hole in this? I'm not saying there is no hole, and I did like your question (and upvoted it), but I'm wondering if you can think of a good attack that I'm missing.

Edit: Instead of "iPhone" I should have said just "phone" since it will be on multiple platforms.

Re: Squareup

#72

Post by ericd »

bumblebird wrote: post #21
pxlpshr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and obviously paypal was ahead of it's time, and I doubt the execution was as clean or user-friendly as square.

I don't really understand the niche it's aiming to fill. Most stores/restaurants have portable card readers these days, so is it a poor-mans one of those? I guess I'm wondering what use-case it's aiming at. Also I absolutely would not trust someone swiping my card through one of these. I like a closed box that is obviously provided by a bank, which cannot be tampered with. Not an iphone that could be doing anything w…

I've seen only a couple restaurants in NYC where the waiters have portable card readers.

And if they roll out person-to-person, this would be a whole lot nicer than, say, having your friend write you a check.

Re: Squareup

#73

Post by maximilian »

scott_s wrote: post #56
vaksel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes but you have to look at the density of people. $250 every day = $25/hour if you "work" 10 hours a day. So 1 person donating $1 every 2.4 minutes. In that 2.4 minute period, there are probably 1,000 people walking by. Is it really that far fetched, that 1 out of those 1,000 people will "give back"? Especially in a city like New York where there are plenty of high income individuals?

Analysis is not evidence. Yes, it sounds reasonable. But that doesn't mean it's true. There are many factors your simple model doesn't take into account.

I guess the problem is reasonable to me is not necessarily reasonable to someone else. It still blows my mine that someone could make so much money begging. I haven't read the above posted article, but it still seems unlikely to me that beggars make that much money.

Perhaps a better way of putting it is: The average beggar doesn't make anywhere near that much. I can imagine some especially good ones that make a solid living doing it, but most don't make much.

Re: Squareup

#74

Post by scott_s »

ellyagg wrote: post #64
scott_s wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analysis is not evidence. Yes, it sounds reasonable. But that doesn't mean it's true. There are many factors your simple model doesn't take into account.

The person he replied to said it "seems highly unlikely". This isn't a peer-reviewed journal here. We're speculating. I will mention that I gave $20 dollars to a girl last week who claimed she had had her stuff stolen and didn't have enough money to get a train back to her house. There's a significant chance she was scamming me, and the point is, with a plausible story, I'm pretty sure you can find many "suckers" eve…

I, too, think it's highly unlikely that a panhandler is clearing $90k a year, since that would place them in a higher income bracket that every working person I know in NYC. I meant his analysis sounds reasonable, not that it actually is. That's the problem with using simple models: you're seduced by simple reasoning applied to complex problems. The ancient Greeks analysis of matter sounded reasonable, too. It is only with further reflection that the reasonable sounding analysis does not hold up.

This is peer-review. I'm curious what the truth is, so I'm going to consider the validity of someone's speculation and criticize it accordingly.

Re: Squareup

#75

Post by socmoth »

puffythefish wrote: post #61
vaksel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a begger in a big town like NYC can clear 90-120K no problem.

Perhaps, but why would a person give money to someone begging with an iPhone?

probably not, but i've met three homeless people with iphones. they don't usually have data plans, they just have the phones. maybe wifi?

Re: Squareup

#76

Post by BigO »

vaksel wrote: post #37

This sounds like a money grab business to me. They'll launch, make a couple hundred mil, then they'll get hit with fraud, a ton of people will lose money, and they'll be forced to shut down, since noone will want to use the service, in fear of getting defrauded. Since there is no barrier to entry, it'll be like 2 weeks before someone comes out with a black market version, that will look exactly the same, but instead…

what if you were the owner of the iphone and square hardware and the business or person you were giving money to had a barcode/number/qr code that you would scan/enter which would go to a third party(probably square) service that verifies your account is in good standing and tells the receiver on their iphone/android then the transaction is completed square takes a small cut 1 cent per transaction for being the trusted middle man. No worry about using untrusted system or anything.

Re: Squareup

#77

Post by socmoth »

ispivey wrote: post #12
lsb wrote: post #4

So how do I buy it? What are the fees? It's backed by Khosla Ventures, so it's obviously not vaporware, but I don't see a call-to-action anywhere.

It's in closed beta with a number of vendors, like @sightglass & @lilybellesf. According to their Twitter, they're taking beta applications later today: http://twitter.com/Square/status/6242394391

there is a form on the page now

Re: Squareup

#78

Post by noodle »

vaksel wrote: post #37

This sounds like a money grab business to me. They'll launch, make a couple hundred mil, then they'll get hit with fraud, a ton of people will lose money, and they'll be forced to shut down, since noone will want to use the service, in fear of getting defrauded. Since there is no barrier to entry, it'll be like 2 weeks before someone comes out with a black market version, that will look exactly the same, but instead…

there are a huge number of legit businesses that would benefit from this. i showed it to a few friends already.

why are we naysaying this specific business and not other point of sale things that operate the exact same way? what prevents someone from running a fake newspaper stand with a laptop and CC swiper? why is this product vastly different?

Re: Squareup

#79

Post by jordyhoyt »

maximilian wrote: post #39
vaksel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a begger in a big town like NYC can clear 90-120K no problem.

In order to make $90,000 begging, you would have to get $250 every day of the year. This seems highly unlikely. I'd say most beggars make more like $20 a day, but I'm just doing armchair science here.

While commuting back and forth to Seattle on the ferries, my dad said he heard a couple people comparing how much they'd made begging that day and it was in the $200-$300 range. They had been disappointed in the "slow" day.

Re: Squareup

#80

Post by petenixey »

vaksel wrote: post #37

This sounds like a money grab business to me. They'll launch, make a couple hundred mil, then they'll get hit with fraud, a ton of people will lose money, and they'll be forced to shut down, since noone will want to use the service, in fear of getting defrauded. Since there is no barrier to entry, it'll be like 2 weeks before someone comes out with a black market version, that will look exactly the same, but instead…

I thought about this but I don't think it's any worse than the status quo.

A scammer can today get hold of a fake taxi badge, pass a skimmer back to the passenger saying it's going to take payment and achieve the same end.

Presumably the argument against square would be that it will desensitise consumers to the risks associated with this and they'll drop their guard.

I think this might make sense if consumers had any guard in the first place. However since I'm sure the average person would hand their credit card to a taxi driver to skim today it's hard to see that Square changes anything.

At the end of the day this will come down to people being careful about who they hand their card to - just as they are (aren't) on the internet.

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