One of the interesting problems for SaS companies is that the "easy signup" usually competes with the "vendor lock-in effect". A startup can use "easy signup" t

One of the interesting problems for SaS companies is that the "easy signup" usually competes with the "vendor lock-in effect". A startup can use "easy signup" to take away customers from an established company but almost immediately it needs to find a way to lock-in the customer to avoid him/her switching to another vendor with even simpler signup, cheaper price, whatever. In a commodity market (like payments), price is usually the most important factor for many users. Thus "vendor lock-in" becomes a must for success. The Square's new products are actually designed to increase customers engagement with the company products and increase the price of switching to a competitor. The payments itself is not sticky but the more advanced products (e.g. online stores) are. The broad range of the products Square is trying right now just shows that the company is searching for the new up-scale market with vendor lock-in where Square can capitalize on the existing customers without risking losing their business. From my point of view, it might be hard for them (they already have a big customers base) and a little too late. Square might have become the victim of its own success where hyper-growth in the last few years didn't allow the management to start this process earlier.