reft

What they 'learned' is they can make money and even when the liability shift happens, the owner of the gizmo (Amazon, Square or other) will have the liability shift on to them, not Amazon, or you have to purchase another unit from Amazon before then.

I would want to see numbers on fraud for the Square type units vs classical clicks or bricks for larger scale merchants. The portable units may have less fraud by count, since they have less volume. It may be 'safer' to defraud Target or Walmart, if they write off small fraud, than the local farmer at the farmer's market who may have the time and inclination to chase down an individual.

The later gas station liability shift date of October 2017 is going to keep magstripe, or dual magstripe+EMV cards around for a while. Guessing existing cardholders will be reissued a card during that period, that could extended the lifetime of magstripe+EMV cards out to 2019 +/- 1yr. Assume at least once in there, there will be be a major re-issuance event due to a data breach or batch of defective chips. Depending on timing, an event like that could leave magstripe cards out there even longer.

The other side, of course, is what happens to the as-built of magstripe readers and how long they remain and where.

Magstripe Cards: They are not going away soon. Even if someone wants it so. If very concerned go get a degausser or some sandpaper and have at it.

So the Amazon product is probably a good idea -- for Amazon. (Or perhaps a manufactured spend party, if the numbers can be made to work during the introductory period.)