Jack Dorsey’s Square is changing its name to Block(theverge.com)
theverge.com
Jack Dorsey’s Square is changing its name to Block
https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/1/22812752/square-changing-name-block-jack-dorsey-cash-app-tidal-crypto-spiral
10 comments
They absolutely should never be granted trademarks on such common words in the first place. The intellectual property system has become another example of regulatory capture, ready to be abused by those with deepest pockets.
Brave for a payment processor to choose a name meaning to hinder or impede.
I hope employees start getting called 'blockheads'. https://observer.com/2012/01/square-employees-are-called-squ...
Likely, if their systems cause blockages or they keep blocking payments.
[deleted]
Why the hell would he copy Meta? That didn't work out particularly well for Facebook, got bad PR and Square is a much better corporate brand than Facebook. Who asked for this?
Outside of HN I have never heard anybody reference Square. Compare to Facebook which is hard to not hear about as their rivals angrily spam incoherent hit pieces. That may be his advantage however - while everyone called and still calls Twitter trash from just its restrictive character limit there isn't such a personal hatred to Dorsey. Unlike Zuckerberg he doesn't have a sizable deranged "secretly an evil android or robot" brigade repeating a variant of the "stab in the back" myth.
what's up with all the renaming? Sounds like a nightmare for the codebase & services or do the eng team just keep the old name internally?
Programmers rarely change codebase names when corporate names change - it has a huge cost for almost no benefit. That's why so many of Apple's Objective-C class names start with NS - which is for NextStep, the company Apple acquired in the mid 90s.
I would say I find a patter of meaningless name changes much more prevalent in "enterprise software" circles.
Find and replace wouldn't be that bad with 'Square' I feel like, I don't think you use the word 'Square' too often while programming, if the company was named ';' or 'def' then id just find another job.
You use square all the time if doing linear algebra or geometry. ;)
it's never as easy as find-and-replace :)
https://block.com
That domain must have been expensive…
That domain must have been expensive…
Hilarious that they're using squarespace for that instead of their own product, Weebly.
hoping they'll merge with google as alphabet block
Let's just trademark dodecahedron
You want to call your band "new kids on the block" or your game "blocks"? Sorry there is a trademark on block and it's "too similar" to what we do. You don't agree? Go ahead sue us, oh BTW we have more money than you...