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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

#241

Post by GekkePrutser »

cutler wrote: post #103
winternett wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is M$ we're talking about. Are you really surprised?

The overused acronym aside, MS does seem to seriously have issues building quality software because they lack focus. They always seem to get hijacked by forces in their own organisation dragging them off-track.

Like totally screwing up Windows 8 because some part of the company wanted to sell more tablets. Ruining Teams by adding so much functionality to it without a clear vision that it's become a slow and confusing mess. Now this, undermining the push for a clean and fast browser with what is probably just one VP pushing this to make a quick monetary win for his team.

This is one thing where Apple under Steve Jobs would shine. The company had one direction, one that was sometimes not what everyone wanted but once it was set it would not let itself be dragged off-track.

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

#242

Post by morpheuskafka »

It seems like the linked Microsoft announcement was hardly proofread at all, which seems surprising. I'd have guessed anything remotely related to finance would be thoroughly reviewed by the legal team prior to going live:

> Applying BNPL could take time, you need to sign in with zip every single time. With BNPL in Edge, you can simply link your Microsoft account with your zip account with one click and then bypass sign in from Zip side. It can expedite the application process for you.

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

#243

Post by Spivak »

cyanydeez wrote: post #121
winternett wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

anyone paying attention.?

I don't think this have been downvoted, this is a really really obvious thing to do with the raging success of both Apple Pay/Shop Pay/Android Pay/Samsung Pay/Paypal and Afterpay and it's clones. From the financial perspective of the big three companies that make browsers they're nothing more than shopping portals and all new user-facing features built into browsers support the user-stories of people buying things.

Paypal & Shop Pay have the problem of getting people to let them store their CC info to upsell them on afterpay type stuff and CC offers -- browsers and $Platform Pay already have it so MS is bootstrapping their $Pay service via the thing they can control.

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

#244

Post by anonymousab »

Spivak wrote: post #206
krisrm wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll have to pay extra for the "enterprise" TV ;)

I mean fine, I’ll gladly pay more just give me the option.

Unfortunately, the "extra" will probably be another 0 on the end of the cost, alongside a minimum order requirement and needing to get the procurement through someone with connections.

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

#245

Post by Tempest1981 »

What next? Windows Explorer (or Teams) will be pushing me to buy an extended warranty for my car... in a friendly Cortana voice.

"Your Internet also appears to be slow. I can switch you to Comcast... say 'Yes' to begin"

Our dystopian future is here.

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

#246

Post by johncena33 »

afavour wrote: post #174
bleachedsleet wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m currently beta testing two paid browsers and I’m about to be trying a third. We are seeing a bit of a golden age for software right now where it seems a certain subset of the population has become not only comfortable paying for it, but also paying realistic (read not subsidized) pricing for it. I’m not saying this will ever be mainstream per se, but I am suggesting that enough people may be interested to make th…

How many of those browsers are Chromium based? Because if they are that’s still not actually an answer, they’re piggybacking off Google’s work.

The irony is Google is the evil corp. who is stalking users is to make more money. And when MS does it, it's because MS is just trying to make money for the service they are providing. Even when MS's browser is based on the work done by Google.

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

#247

Post by Spivak »

freeflight wrote: post #217
Spivak wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean fine, I’ll gladly pay more just give me the option.

You just fell for the con!

But why is it a con though?

Marginal cost of TV is $600, amortized business cost for projected sales is $400, expected average lifetime revenue from user data and ads is $60 ($15/"user"/yr for 5 years which is damn good for an ad network), throw in a 6.3% profit margin and we get TV priced at $999.99.

Throw away the ads and user data collection and up the profit to 10% to make it worth their while (since someone willing to pay more is on average worth more to advertisers and so decreases the value of their network) and we get a TV priced at $1099.99.

This seems totally fair to me.

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

#248

Post by randomfool »

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?

You've never gone to the grocery store with $10 for a week of food for you and a child.

A whole lot of people are living day-to-day- lying to the IRS about their number of dependents, just trying to make it through today.

The basic daily needs lead to some poor long-term decisions. The people pushing this 'pay later' scheme are scum.

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

#249

Post by DavidPiper »

rappatic wrote: post #182
mbesto wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can thank the capital side of the equation for this. Example: https://andrewchen.com/this-is-what-free-ad-supported-uber-r... They used to hide it, but because so much money is being made there's no point anymore.

That site is a perfect example of this. It actually required me to sign up for the newsletter to even read the article.

It's interesting to watch how pages work (or don't) when you delete the advertising DOM elements from the page. Some work fine (like this one), others crash when they try to do something smart like "show the un-skippable banner when you scroll past here".

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

#250

Post by brobinson »

msie wrote: post #160

Just recently I was setting up Windows 10. One of the first things it asked for is an email account or you can create one. Ugh. I remember the days when you didn't need an email account to setup an OS. Also Windows 10 has many nagging notifications if you are not logged in to Microsoft services.

Unplug your ethernet and it lets you create a local account.
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