Square

Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter, has announced a new technology called Square. It is a card reader that plugs into the headphones jack of mobile devices or computers. The idea is to make a more convenient and portable way for anybody to accept credit cards. All I have to say is it is about damn time!

How many times have you had to go to an ATM to settle out splitting a meal at a restaurant? How many times have you had to run across the street to the bank because you didn't realize Bob's Deli didn't accept credit card? Is it fair to have to purchase 10 dollars at Quiznos when your sandwich only costs 6 just because you only have 5 dollars cash? There has been a big problem with accepting credit cards since day one. Maybe it wasn't that big of a deal when no one really used credit cards except for big purchases but now with debit cards and modern checking accounts it doesn't seem that ridiculous anymore to buy a pack of gum with your card. In fact, when a pack of gum now costs $1.09 it is definitely faster to swipe your card than to watch the look of pain shoot across the sixteen-year-old cashier who now has to figure out how to give you 91 cents in change. Actually, change is the number 1 reason I never pay with cash. I don't want to carry around pounds of change after a day's worth of purchases. Why is it that nothing costs even amounts anymore? If gum were a quarter or if a soda was a single dollar then this wouldn't be that much of a pain. But everything is $1.99 or $2.49 or $3.19!! Tax is different in every state down to halves of pennies and there is no consistency on what is taxed either. Food is not taxed but that doesn't include Lays potato chips. In some states, clothes aren't taxed but it doesn't include shoes or belts or hats? I don't really know but there is no way to tell if you are going to need 32 cents or 56 cents or 93 cents the next time you purchase something with cash. And no one wants to do the calculation in their head either.

So back to Square. Could this be an answer to our payment problems? In my opinion, this is only a small step and way, way late. The credit card companies and middlemen that control transfers around credit card payments have made way too much money for a crappy job with hardly any technological advancement. I still see those block card swipers that almost never work and you have to wait 5 minutes for the receipt to print out twice. How much does it cost to use one of those? Probably 3% of every purchase or maybe worse! That is why you have to spend 10 dollars at Quiznos with a card. Let's hope that this solution is not too expensive because I am sure the credit card companies are going to want to keep their fees in place. Let's also hope that this solution can be trusted and doesn't cause issues with people stealing credit cards, money, or even identities.

The next step needs to be getting rid of those stupid magnetic strips or even getting rid of credit cards altogether. So printing money is obviously the most wasteful because it is a lot of paper, time and more money just to print them all out and to create and research crazy inks with holograms, watermarks, and microscopic characters to prevent counterfeit. But replacing your debit or credit card at least once a year because the magnetic strip deteriorates is not much better and 100 times more annoying. Why would they create something that deteriorates every time you use it or even if you just leave it in your wallet? It is like the bar code technology. I can't believe that is still in place. Let's put something on a label so that after it gets shipped all over the country it can't even be read anymore and then no one knows how much anything costs. When the 24 hour corner store in Brooklyn is more efficient than the supermarket because they just charge everything in even dollar amounts, then we have got to think that our technologies are not actually helping us in these situations. We need something better. In college our ID cards had a magnetic strip and we all put tape over it to make it last a little longer. Why? Shouldn't your card last until its actual expiration date? MasterCard has the PayPass thing but that doesn't work too well and hasn't caught on quite so much. However, I like the idea. We need something that can securely charge our bank accounts wirelessly. The PayPass seems to be a hybrid solution in a world still reliant on using an actual card.

I like the idea behind Square and I think that it can be successful and helpful to the everyday consumer. But we need to start thinking outside the box. Until then we'll just have to settle for the next best, Square.

http://squareup.com/