Why is Square charging for 'tip pooling'?

[Nico916]

I'm disappointed today to see the announcement that Square is beginning to further reduce its features and services - pushing sellers to their paid versions. "Tip pooling" has been around for years, and allows equal distribution of tips to all employees working, even when not logged into the POS. For quick-service and bars, where staff is not individually logged in. Beginning February 2023 the fee of $4 will be required to share/pool tips. We already have fees for Payroll, why is Team Management now getting its own fee?

In simple operations, like my bar, no other feature in the "Plus" feature set is relevant. And it's not like the 'tip pooling' feature is an innovation, or a featured only required at large-scale or enterprise businesses. This is just how Square is going to nickle-and-dime us to subscribe to its "ecosystem". 

Why not build features that have been requested for years, such as pre-auth, before deciding to charge more for the same product and services that require no new code? 

[JTPets]

While I too find micro transactions are frustrating, and am often annoyed when a feature I want is behind a paywall (COG Tracking is one that really annoyed me when i came to square). I will say square is constantly innovating and improving their offerings.

One of the best ways to request features is to get a feature request posted, and engage with that post. The more users demanding a feature with a clear picture of how it should function and why its necessary gets more traction from the dev team.  I've been part of several feature improvements I've spear headed through posting and replying to topics that were for features I desired