Wow, saw this happen at the coffee shop round the corner.
They had no back up, so reverted to cash only.
We’d already ordered, so we’ll pay tomorrow.
But seriously wtf. If square intends to be the only for of payment for a business (an envious position) then they simply can’t go down. Their product should have enough redundancy, or some form of backup/offline pay, to ensure this never happens.
Cash is a back up, and probably one of the most robust back ups possible in the event of a technology failure. It is, however, unfortunate that many customers have given up having more than one form of payment. Paying tomorrow is also a form of back up. Which back ups are chosen is a trade off and introduce their own risks (in this case, risk that the form of payment is one that people increasingly don't have, or the risk that you won't be back tomorrow to settle up).
There is a backup. It’s astonishing how many people don’t seem to know this. If you cut internet to the terminal you can make offline payments and they’re stored for 24 hours. I do IT for a retail chain that uses square and we did this. People can still buy stuff just fine (as long as its under $200 in one transaction)
They’re still down and just put out a statement that they’re still looking for the root cause, which is unbelievable to me that after 9 hours they don’t know what happened.
They had no back up, so reverted to cash only.
We’d already ordered, so we’ll pay tomorrow.
But seriously wtf. If square intends to be the only for of payment for a business (an envious position) then they simply can’t go down. Their product should have enough redundancy, or some form of backup/offline pay, to ensure this never happens.