Super interesting that the Starbucks deal was a $20m loss. I swear back then I read Square, or maybe it was Keith Rabois, claim that Square was making money on

Super interesting that the Starbucks deal was a $20m loss. I swear back then I read Square, or maybe it was Keith Rabois, claim that Square was making money on the deal. Knew it was bullshit because they also claimed Starbucks was saving money on processing with Square. That just didn't add up. Makes sense now to hear this. Overall, not shocked at the situation. A lot of people like to compare Square to Apple. Superficially the product design is comparable (simplicity, elegance). But a HUGE difference is that Apple has always targeted products that have generous margins. Payment processing is a commodity, microscopic-margin business. Square Cash is outright operating at a loss. Not at all Apple-like. It's cool they initially went after a segment more tolerant of a relatively fatter fee: the underserved very small business / individual proprietor market. But at the same time, there's a lot of advertising, support and perhaps even fraud costs with that segment. And crucially, it's hard to move upmarket to bigger businesses that demand a more competitive processing fee. It would be sweet for a company like Square to take a fresh, Apple-like take on the point of sale market. But sadly that doesn't seem compatible with the sheer amount of venture funding they've taken on, which demands a highly profitable multi billion dollar market. They would practically have to take over the entire world of POS to make that kind of money on it, meeting resistance to fat margins and bearing significant sales and support costs every step of the way. No wonder they are positioning themselves as a "commerce" not "payments" company.. they need to look elsewhere for profits.