It blows my mind that people use these food delivery services at all. The prices are wild. You hear people complain about how hard it is to make ends meet these days, yet they waste their money on these kind of luxuries. At least before you could wave it off as “well people buying Uber eats and complaining about the economy are separate groups”, but the existence of loans specifically for this blows up that argument.
Burrito Now, Pay Later
61–70 of 364 posts
Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later
#62Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
An industry of parasites, extracting money from people already down on their luck. Rats.
Because the easiest person to extract money from is someone with no other option. We are right back to feudalism.
Usury is outlawed in many religions for good reason. This is a known problem with a known solution, but our society is run by billionaires who can put substantial capital to convincing the proles otherwise.
Simply bring up inflation is wrong and not necessary (outside of disaster, etc) and the US government should control its own monetary policy and not the fed. You’ll get downvoted and/or fed arguments from economists (modern day priests) about how wrong you are. And yet the wealth gap keeps growing while we’re the most technologically advanced and efficient we’ve ever been.
Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later
#64Why do people use these instead of a credit card?
Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later
#65This treatise, from someone obviously in the industry, is merely another payday loan shark attempting to justify the existence of their clearly predatory products. How many of the consumers of this product are even remotely able to comprehend the piece as-is described? The article describes a "complete market". Yes, a market that is completely able to extract as much money from an exploited, uneducated populace as po…
Amen. It's been my experience that, for any innovation in financial technology, if you keep asking "and why is that beneficial?" for long enough, you will finally arrive (via tangents into "liquidity" and suchlike) at "it allows those with money to extract more money from those with less money".
In general, the availability of credit has been a positive economic factor that helps enable capital expenditures that otherwise would only be available to the wealthiest. Lack of such credit leads to capture of means of production and rent seeking behaviors in economic terms.
However, it’s become more and more clear that not all credit is created equal and what you spend the resulting capital on matters a lot. If one buys a house to live in or equipment to make money with - that’s generally good use of credit, assuming costs do not outweigh the benefits. I can’t think of a situation where buying lunch that one has to finance is a good thing (as different from credit card points harvesting/optimization). The implications of anything similar to payday loans going mainstream feels like a large societal risk.
Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, with exception of housing. Most people can't buy home with cash, and for many this is a necessity. But homes are an appreciating asset, which cannot be said about cars or food - this is an investment, actually. But for everything else - cars, phones, electronics, food, subscriptions, jewelry - I 100% agree. Consider two people: * One person has $10k saved, invested into something safe and liquid. Then buys s…
Personally, I think we should have all rent-extracting industries nationalized. Land, like in China, should be available only under a 99-year lease (perhaps with a modest homestead exemption). The government should own radio airwaves, natural resources, and banking. This doesn't mean that it couldn't hire private contractors to do the work (e.g. bidding on oil extraction), but Chevron and Exxon shouldn't own the oil…
I am so so happy we live in a democracy. Because if your ilk managed to take power, it would only have been possible through violent authoritarian revolution
Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later
#67Being fully leveraged is great for capitalism and horrible for your mental health and general well being. Ever live under crushing debt? It’s awful. Step back for a minute and look at the big picture. People are taking on debt to eat lunch. That’s insane. The author acts like it’s zero sum and if BNPL isn’t the one offering the short term loan someone else will at worse terms. That’s just not true and hand waves over the fact that people who are uneducated are unwittingly being coaxed into making bad decisions with glittery UX and one click checkout.
Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later
#68This treatise, from someone obviously in the industry, is merely another payday loan shark attempting to justify the existence of their clearly predatory products. How many of the consumers of this product are even remotely able to comprehend the piece as-is described? The article describes a "complete market". Yes, a market that is completely able to extract as much money from an exploited, uneducated populace as po…
Amen. It's been my experience that, for any innovation in financial technology, if you keep asking "and why is that beneficial?" for long enough, you will finally arrive (via tangents into "liquidity" and suchlike) at "it allows those with money to extract more money from those with less money".
I have no idea what I think about BNPL products, but those "tangents into liquidity" basically eliminated most of the costs of trading. You can't negatively polarize me into thinking there's a social good to paying $50 to place a simple buy order; not having to do that is part of what "liquidity" means.
Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later
#69This treatise, from someone obviously in the industry, is merely another payday loan shark attempting to justify the existence of their clearly predatory products. How many of the consumers of this product are even remotely able to comprehend the piece as-is described? The article describes a "complete market". Yes, a market that is completely able to extract as much money from an exploited, uneducated populace as po…
It's unhinged. > Is financing your lunch a sign of societal decay? Maybe, maybe not. Financing your lunch means you can't pay for your lunch. And then somebody comes to search profit in that. Yep, it's societal decay. Ah, but he draws the line at sports bets, he doesn't like that.
Interesting, because sports betting is waaaay more voluntary than eating.
Eating is voluntary, if only for short while.
Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later
#70> If you think the price of oil will be $120 after a year, you can use futures or options on futures to make this bet. If you think the S&P 500 will be over 6,500 within 2 years and the yield on 10Y Treasury bonds will be 4.25%, investment bankers will help you express this view for a fee. I’m sorry but I think the either the author or I have entirely lost the plot. Finance is a game we play to make humans better off…
The author is writing creatively. s/express this view/bet on this
And remember folks creatively does not equal good.