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The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

theatlantic.com

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Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#11

Post by yladiz »

ivanche wrote: post #10
yladiz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a bit too simplistic of a way to look at it. Having sone debt is not necessarily bad, even outside of enormous purchases such as a house or car. First, c'mon, people don't (directly) finance sandwiches. Have you ever seen a sandwich shop accept Klarna? If you're talking about a credit card that's something but that's not what this article is talking about, which is BNPL. Second, in general it's not as…

If you can afford 12 payments with interest, you can by definition also afford to save for 12 months and then buy the camera. BNPL and credit card companies are masters of exploiting psychology and especially currently prevailing wusiness and entitlement ("But I want it now!!!1!", "I deserve to treat myself like a king").

Okay, I repeat my question above: if you can afford to pay over 12 months (meaning, you don't go into debt to do so), what's inherently wrong with doing it instead of waiting 12 months and paying all at once, besides ideological reasons?

Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#12

Post by fleischhauf »

ivanche wrote: post #10
yladiz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a bit too simplistic of a way to look at it. Having sone debt is not necessarily bad, even outside of enormous purchases such as a house or car. First, c'mon, people don't (directly) finance sandwiches. Have you ever seen a sandwich shop accept Klarna? If you're talking about a credit card that's something but that's not what this article is talking about, which is BNPL. Second, in general it's not as…

If you can afford 12 payments with interest, you can by definition also afford to save for 12 months and then buy the camera. BNPL and credit card companies are masters of exploiting psychology and especially currently prevailing wusiness and entitlement ("But I want it now!!!1!", "I deserve to treat myself like a king").

while I agree I can also see cases where you need things not later, but now but you'll have the money later not now. e.g. moving to a remote village where you really need a car or buying that compute for data processing or rendering you need for your freelance work

Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#13

Post by goosedragons »

senttoschool wrote: post #5
crote wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that there is no such thing as a free lunch, though. Credit card companies aren't charities! In general all those perks are paid for by rather significant credit card processing fees, which you pay for yourself via increased product prices. Furthermore, their goal is to normalize the use of credit cards, in the hope that you'll eventually stumble and get screwed over by the interest fees. Also, I think y…

In general all those perks are paid for by rather significant credit card processing fees, which you pay for yourself via increased product prices. The price is the same whether you pay via BNPL or credit card. I get that merchants get charged by credit card companies. I also know that I'm not going to make a difference by boycotting credit card companies. I'd just lose out. Also, BNPL companies charge merchants the…

Yeah. Stores increase prices to account for the higher transaction fees required to support giving CC users 2-4% cashback. Frankly CC reward schemes should be banned. It's just another shitty way for the poor to subsidize the middle class.

Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#14

Post by foldr »

ivanche wrote: post #10
yladiz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a bit too simplistic of a way to look at it. Having sone debt is not necessarily bad, even outside of enormous purchases such as a house or car. First, c'mon, people don't (directly) finance sandwiches. Have you ever seen a sandwich shop accept Klarna? If you're talking about a credit card that's something but that's not what this article is talking about, which is BNPL. Second, in general it's not as…

If you can afford 12 payments with interest, you can by definition also afford to save for 12 months and then buy the camera. BNPL and credit card companies are masters of exploiting psychology and especially currently prevailing wusiness and entitlement ("But I want it now!!!1!", "I deserve to treat myself like a king").

The tricky thing is factoring death into the equation. At some point, given that we all might die on any given day, delaying gratification to save a small amount of interest isn't worth the risk. But of course that's hard to calculate.

Also, if you wait to buy something then you have less time to enjoy it, so it is theoretically worth a bit less to you.

Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#15

Post by christkv »

yladiz wrote: post #11
ivanche wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can afford 12 payments with interest, you can by definition also afford to save for 12 months and then buy the camera. BNPL and credit card companies are masters of exploiting psychology and especially currently prevailing wusiness and entitlement ("But I want it now!!!1!", "I deserve to treat myself like a king").

Okay, I repeat my question above: if you can afford to pay over 12 months (meaning, you don't go into debt to do so), what's inherently wrong with doing it instead of waiting 12 months and paying all at once, besides ideological reasons?

I think the argument is that its easy to get out of control and leave yourself exposed.

If you have discipline then I don't see any problems. I might behov the industry to be forced to do more stringent credit checks before allowing it either by law or regulation.

Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#16

Post by cjrp »

ivanche wrote: post #10
yladiz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a bit too simplistic of a way to look at it. Having sone debt is not necessarily bad, even outside of enormous purchases such as a house or car. First, c'mon, people don't (directly) finance sandwiches. Have you ever seen a sandwich shop accept Klarna? If you're talking about a credit card that's something but that's not what this article is talking about, which is BNPL. Second, in general it's not as…

If you can afford 12 payments with interest, you can by definition also afford to save for 12 months and then buy the camera. BNPL and credit card companies are masters of exploiting psychology and especially currently prevailing wusiness and entitlement ("But I want it now!!!1!", "I deserve to treat myself like a king").

If there's 0% interest, you might be better off buying the camera now rather than in 12 months when the price has increased.

Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#17

Post by dbbk »

senttoschool wrote: post #2

“We found that most of the people that use buy now, pay later either don’t have or don’t use a credit card,” Marco Di Maggio, an economist at Harvard, told me. He said that Gen Z was skeptical of credit cards, possibly because many of them had seen their parents sink into debt. This is always weird to me. It makes sense why Gen Z does this. But weird. I can get 2-4% back on all my purchases using my credit card, incl…

I'm 30 and never had a credit card. Always felt like an extra layer of complication I don't need. I have enough money, I'd prefer to directly spend it. With a credit card there'd always be a nagging feeling some payment would be missed or something would go wrong and all of a sudden I'd be hit with interest charges.

Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#18

Post by aspyct »

dusted wrote: post #3

I don't get it.. There's a childrens song in Denmark, it's lyrics go, roughly translated "and if you have money, then you can have, but have you none, then you may go!" (it's about buying bread at the bakery).. When I see how people spend money they don't have, I'm always wondering if their parents never sang for them when they were young, or if they are of a particular dim nature. Sure, I can see why some people wou…

I agree that it's stupid to finance everything.

However some big things make sense to finance.

Take your car example: I'm not rich enough to buy a car that won't break down every year (I know, I tried).

However, when my car breaks down, I can't go to my clients and I lose money.

In this case, it makes sense to rent out a car that's going to be working properly, and with guarantees in case it doesn't.

However yes, I wouldn't buy a toaster in multiple payments...

Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#19

Post by desas »

yladiz wrote: post #7
dusted wrote: post #3

I don't get it.. There's a childrens song in Denmark, it's lyrics go, roughly translated "and if you have money, then you can have, but have you none, then you may go!" (it's about buying bread at the bakery).. When I see how people spend money they don't have, I'm always wondering if their parents never sang for them when they were young, or if they are of a particular dim nature. Sure, I can see why some people wou…

I think this is a bit too simplistic of a way to look at it. Having sone debt is not necessarily bad, even outside of enormous purchases such as a house or car. First, c'mon, people don't (directly) finance sandwiches. Have you ever seen a sandwich shop accept Klarna? If you're talking about a credit card that's something but that's not what this article is talking about, which is BNPL. Second, in general it's not as…

> First, c'mon, people don't (directly) finance sandwiches. Have you ever seen a sandwich shop accept Klarna? If you're talking about a credit card that's something but that's not what this article is talking about, which is BNPL.

In the UK, Deliveroo (a food delivery company) will let you pay by Klarna for orders >= £30, including from sandwich shops. Here's the press release: https://www.klarna.com/international/press/deliveroo-and-kla...

Re: The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst

#20

Post by strken »

dusted wrote: post #3

I don't get it.. There's a childrens song in Denmark, it's lyrics go, roughly translated "and if you have money, then you can have, but have you none, then you may go!" (it's about buying bread at the bakery).. When I see how people spend money they don't have, I'm always wondering if their parents never sang for them when they were young, or if they are of a particular dim nature. Sure, I can see why some people wou…

It's sometimes an emergency loan to get your car fixed or to get a replacement car, so that you don't get fired from the job you drive to, so that you have enough money to continue paying for a roof and food.
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