Just a quick followup to review of Square Cash — further experience has confirmed that using Square Cash is a really really good way to not know whether or not you’ve managed to make or receive a payment. They transfer money from me to you. A couple days later, without warning, they transfer it back from you to me. They ignore most inquiries and respond uninformatively to others. Don’t use these guys.
On another note, I realize blogging’s been slow of late. I’m hoping to find time for some long posts in the near future.
Huh, I thought the discipline of the market meant that private industry never shipped a new product in a broken state?
Dr_M: Read more carefully! The earlier post you’re citing says that the discipline of the market is a big part of the reason why *some* things work, not all things — and makes the distinction pretty carefully.
Sorry, failed my saving throw against snark.
That said, this is actually an interesting point of comparison for me, because I happen to know one or two people at Square. They are very smart people with a strong background in this area, and one wildly successful product under their belt already. And yet… Square Cash is pretty much a disaster as a 1.0 product.
Large-scale IT is hard. Really hard. There are no silver bullets other than time, diligence, and the ability to absorb a few body blows.
What does the seller do to pursue payment after the initial payment has been reversed?
Does the seller email the buyer requesting payment, just as a seller would contact the buyer if a check had bounced?
And if he buyer refuses, is there anything the seller can do, if (assuming this premise) the seller only has the buyer’s name (which could of course be non-unique) and email address?
“Large-scale IT is hard. Really hard.”
Indeed. Which suggests that trusting the healthcare of millions to a law critically dependent upon it was imprudent.
KenB, what about Medicare?
Forget medicare, what about all of our banks, existing health insurance companies, hospitals, social security, the military… we depend on large scale IT for lots of important things. I can’t see any way to view Ken’s comment as making a shred of sense.