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Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

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Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#81

Post by winternett »

AlexandrB wrote: post #15

> It allows any purchase between $35 and $1,000 made through Microsoft Edge to be split into four payments over a six-week period. > While the service is being promoted as ‘interest-free’, some were quick to point out that all transactions are subject to a “$4 flat fee”. $4 in fees on $1000 over 6 weeks is an effective APR of around 4% - pretty good. $4 in fees on $35 over 6 weeks is an outrageous APR of around 123%.…

Now web browsers are gonna become credit cards attached to your browsing history... Great job guys! :|

Ugh, who ever would have thought 2021 would have come to this.

Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#82

Post by winternett »

the_snooze wrote: post #70
yesplorer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does anyone need a payment plan for a $35 item though?

Because it hides the true price of things. It makes it easier to consume blindly with no regard to the actual cost.

It also allows them to more deeply tie your buying habits to your browsing history and to monitor you to figure out how to manipulate you towards spending more towards their owned and affiliated interests, while also making interest on your purchases. Diabolical.

Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#83

Post by turminal »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #60

MS is probably one of the best positioned to give very accurate digital credit score, given just about everything goes thru their OS and browser. There’s tons of such companies now - basically just scraping your Uber, Postmates, etc accounts and selling that to banks so people without credit history can have a start.

> MS is probably one of the best positioned to give very accurate digital credit score, given just about everything goes thru their OS and browser.

I don't think so, lots of people do everything on their phones.

Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#84

Post by ziml77 »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #60

MS is probably one of the best positioned to give very accurate digital credit score, given just about everything goes thru their OS and browser. There’s tons of such companies now - basically just scraping your Uber, Postmates, etc accounts and selling that to banks so people without credit history can have a start.

I don’t get how scraping info from Uber and whatnot helps with borrowing money. How are those signals about your risk to the bank?

Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#85

Post by thrower123 »

yesplorer wrote: post #28
AlexandrB wrote: post #15

> It allows any purchase between $35 and $1,000 made through Microsoft Edge to be split into four payments over a six-week period. > While the service is being promoted as ‘interest-free’, some were quick to point out that all transactions are subject to a “$4 flat fee”. $4 in fees on $1000 over 6 weeks is an effective APR of around 4% - pretty good. $4 in fees on $35 over 6 weeks is an outrageous APR of around 123%.…

Why does anyone need a payment plan for a $35 item though?

They're offering payment plans on Dominos pizza now...

Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#86

Post by tentacleuno »

Really goes to show that despite how good Edge looks on paper (and I am not denying the technical achievements are impressive), Microsoft are not listening to the people using this browser. Combined with the fact that a lot of people use it because it's practically forced on them[0][1][2][3], the whole model of this browser is egregious.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29251210

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28108409

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961649

[3]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#87

Post by ziml77 »

gianthockey495 wrote: post #58
spiderice wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I don’t get how this is any better than what Google does. Google doesn’t sell your data either. They themselves consume your data, and use it to push ads in your face and track you across the web. In other words, collecting insane amounts of data is also bad. Not just the selling of it.

In fact, personally (just my opinion) I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft sold my data - extra cash for them. Google's main business is ads though - they WANT that data, and I wouldn't say they'd sell it.

I wouldn’t be surprised, but I’d also need some reasonably strong evidence to believe it.

Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#88

Post by SilasX »

metaltyphoon wrote: post #36
yesplorer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does anyone need a payment plan for a $35 item though?

As crazy as it seems, in Brazil, payment plans are accepted everywhere. You can literally buy gas , groceries, medicines or whatever on your credit card and they will split make those installments for you. Maybe this market exist outside of the US?

Well, any time you buy with a credit card, you’re effectively doing the same thing.

I remember when they were rolling out credit cards in the US as a common payment method (late 90s)[1], and so for the first time you could put your McDonald’s meal on a credit card, comedians were joking that it felt like you were saying you couldn’t afford it all at once.

Which is not too far off from the reaction here.

[1] and to clarify, yes credit cards were a thing long before that but they were mainly accepted at department stores and for big ticket purchases, not fast food.

Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#89

Post by [deleted] »

tentacleuno wrote: post #86

Really goes to show that despite how good Edge looks on paper (and I am not denying the technical achievements are impressive), Microsoft are not listening to the people using this browser. Combined with the fact that a lot of people use it because it's practically forced on them[0][1][2][3], the whole model of this browser is egregious. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29251210 [1]: https://news.ycombinator…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial ‘buy now, pay later’ feature for Edge

#90

Post by judge2020 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #39
watermelon0 wrote: post #6

Microsoft finally made a browser which renders websites as expected, is up-to-date regarding security and features, and (most) people actually don't have the need to replace it with anything else. I will never understand why they NEED to ruin this. It's baffling.

Because Microsoft's raison-d'être is to extract as much money as possible from computer users. No matter how much they try to not be evil, no matter how many overtures they make to developers, it won't change the fact that Microsoft is basically just a hostile entity out there to extract as much money as possible from the computing scene.

I imagine some MBA saw a way they could augment the payment card feature to extract money, and bringing that to their manager is a good permanent gain for them (since they most likely won’t have to answer to the PR team).
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