Apple has teamed up with its arch-rival Block to offer its new two-way tap to pay feature.
👉 Background: Apple and Block both have a pretty tight grip on the payments space. Apple's got its tap to pay feature and Apple Wallet, while Block's got Square - the little white terminals for retailers to accept payments.
👉 What happened: Apple kinda entered Square's turf with its new two way tap to pay feature that turns iPhones into payment terminals... AKA goodbye little white terminals.
👉 What else: Obviously, that had Square shaking in its little white booties. So, Square decided to partner with Apple to bring the two way feature to Square retailers.
💡Research and development of products is becoming more costly. The result? Collaboration between competitors is becoming more common.
💡It's called 'co-opetition' - where major business competitors link up for product development, innovation, or joint manufacturing. Like when YouTube and Vimeo linked up to allow creators to publish across both platforms... or when Pfizer and BioNTech linked up to jointly develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
💡Now, Apple's providing its tech to Square to help Square sellers increase sales. There's a method to the madness: a study found co-opetition has more than a 50% chance of mutually reducing costs.
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