> My impression of Block was that it was mostly a one-trick pony (okay, two if you include CashApp) with a bunch of side initiatives that never seemed to pan out,

I worked at Block for ~6.5 years up until 2024. This is mostly correct.

They were the first to market for portable CC readers, and segued that into "high tech" POS systems which, to be fair, were significantly better than the available alternatives at the time. But flashy hardware design and iPads isn't really a moat, and the company never developed a great muscle for launching other initiatives. The strategy was "omnibus" - trying to do everything for everyone and win on the ecosystem efficiencies...but when none of your products are particularly standout it's hard to get and keep customers.

CashApp being the notable exception, because they gave the founder carte blanche. It was effectively 2 different companies operating under the $SQ ticker. They even had their own interview process for internal transfers. Although ironically the engineering standards on the CashApp side of the fence were significantly sloppier than on the Square side...to the point where I stopped using CashApp and stopped recommending it to friends once I transferred to that org and saw how the sausage was made.

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paxys 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Exactly. Square was the first great checkout system, but now a decade and a half later every other system is good enough that retailers aren't going to pay extra for a flashier app.

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raw_anon_1111 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And before people like my barber would have had a square reader. With NFC in modern phones, they just use that

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mattmaroon 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s not extra and their hardware is still far better than the competition. Square is still awesome in the small business PoS space. Their lead has not shrunk.

	▲	paxys 25 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Toast has already caught up in market share, and dominates the restaurant industry. Square's numbers have been stagnant for many years. And more importantly, the entire premise when Square launched was that app-based "cloud" PoS systems would replace all traditional cash registers. Except now 15 years later that simply hasn't happened. Existing players in the space all caught up and shipped chip and NFC readers to their retailers, and that's all that was needed.
	▲	Marsymars an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You might think Square has better hardware/software, but they absolutely are extra cost-wise for small businesses if you compare them to e.g. Helcim.

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simonw 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Did any of the blockchain initiatives ever go anywhere? I understood that's why they renamed the company to Block, but did that end up a similar rebrand to Facebook -> Meta?

	▲	ursuscamp 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They are heavily invested in Bitcoin and still offer and improve their Bitcoin services. It’s not really “blockchain.” They’re not a crypto company. They are ideologically dedicated to Bitcoin.
	▲	daxfohl 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		I don't think so. I know a couple people that worked in TBD (the bitcoin org) and everyone said it was directionless. Eventually the CTO ~abandoned that org and took on that Goose AI project.
	▲	rco8786 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The only thing it served was to distract Jack from building real products.