This will provide bigger surface area for scamming and fleecing them.

You should check out the POS market sometime. They've been scamming small businesses for several decades.

when your business model is easily replicated and done better I guess its only natural to extend it or simply move onto something else and integrate it to your current product.

Does seem like one big privacy risk, really I do not think I want my POS terminals connected to the net for any reason.

You mean, not even to process credit card purchases? What about uploading your receipts and timecard records to your accountant?

It's really only the nearly antiquated systems that are not on the internet these days.

How do your POS terminals differ from a website+cart? Aside from the obvious things like barcode scanner, CC scanner, receipt printer, and till?