'Buy now, pay later' is sending the TikTok generation spiraling into debt

[O.Red]

Rent to own remixed

 

[OperationNumbNutts]

Tik Tok generations? I stopped reading after the second sentence. Young people are being suckered into the same games as older generations like pay-day-loans, credit cards, store credit accounts etc. Since millenials are turning 40 people are now pointing the finger at the youth today. Personally I find it tiring and sick.

 

[Macallik86]

Tik Tok generations? I stopped reading after the second sentence. Young people are being suckered into the same games as older generations like pay-day-loans, credit cards, store credit accounts etc. Since millenials are turning 40 people are now pointing the finger at the youth today. Personally I find it tiring and sick.

That's one perspective.

The other perspective is that the younger demographics (irrespective of whether it was in 2022 or 1992) were always the most vulnerable. You might not have been aware, but prior to the last decade or so, Credit Card companies went out of their way to sign up college students, literally setting up booths and giving away free shyt on campus.

Yes, even back then older people were getting hustled too, but the point is that younger people on average tend to have less disposable income and less financial discipline given their new levels of independence which makes them the perfect target for unsavory financial practices

 

[Steam Deck]

.......................

 

[Selena]

Done this a couple times though I like to buy my stuff outright. I hate financing things. It's ok for a responsible person to do. However, this should go towards helping credit when they pay their shyt before or on time.

 

[hashmander]

if it's interest free over those 4 payments it could be a very good deal. shyt with inflation if you don't have all the money right now i'd do it for a necessity. i'll give a specific example. i don't need a generator right now (i have a whole house one), but if I did and I didn't have the $700 budgeted for that item right now (4k watt inverter generator), i would pay for it over 4 interest free payments for two reasons. 1) if I wait that generator might be $750 in August and not just because of 2022 inflation, but hurricane season inflation. 2) it's a tax free holiday on hurricane preparedness shyt this week in florida. that's a $50 savings on sales taxes to get it now. so if I pay $175 each of the next 4 months I would come out ahead vs waiting until I could spend a min of $750 up front next week and more if the wait is longer.

 

[killacal]

Corporations have always used psychological manipulation, but they're getting better and better at it. As in there are huge corporations who are hiring dozens of actual psychologists just so they can manipulate their consumer base in the most refined manner possible.


The annoying shyt to me is so many people blame the victims. Everything they do is calculated to fukk with your brain. It's calculated to trigger certain pleasure receptors, to avoid certain things that trigger risk avoidance protocols. They have FAR more brainpower working on this than the average person is ever going to muster themselves. But then people will come in with the excuses, "Well the corporations didn't lie so it's all okay and you're just a fool if you fell for their scheme."

With the way social media and the internet marketplace is dominating life, we need to take psychological manipulation seriously and regulate it or we're going to be fukked as a society. This is only the early stages and it will keep getting worse.

hope the sun in shining that day

 

[Macallik86]

if it's interest free over those 4 payments it could be a very good deal. shyt with inflation if you don't have all the money right now i'd do it for a necessity. i'll give a specific example. i don't need a generator right now (i have a whole house one), but if I did and I didn't have the $700 budgeted for that item right now (4k watt inverter generator), i would pay for it over 4 interest free payments for two reasons. 1) if I wait that generator might be $750 in August and not just because of 2022 inflation, but hurricane season inflation. 2) it's a tax free holiday on hurricane preparedness shyt this week in florida. that's a $50 savings on sales taxes to get it now. so if I pay $175 each of the next 4 months I would come out ahead vs waiting until I could spend a min of $750 up front next week and more if the wait is longer.

Yeah that scenario could work out well... But this scenario is unconsciously extremely financially savvy and my uneducated guess is likely not the reasoning behind the vast majority of BNPL purchases.

In the article, there is also this disingenuous quote that the services are primarily for well-budgeted individuals looking for an interest-free loan. But the article pushes back on that. (Also I'm imagining the majority of financially-literate people have an emergency account for any unexpected purchases as well.)

IMO, that leaves the majority of people using BNPL as people struggling to make purchases on typically unnecessary goods. Also, there's evidence to suggest that the average checkout price balloons +2x when people use BNPL, so it is really just people throwing good money after bad.

 

[Yaboysix]

God damn!

These lil nikkas want “things” so bad! I ain’t get Shyt I wanted when I was younger , and when I did I had to wait.

To be real, I had my lil Nintendo 64/GameCube couple games and I was Gucci!

 

[JLova]

For the record, I’ve used these payment plans in the past and fully had the money to buy outright. But why do that if I’m not paying interest? I’m responsible so missing payments is impossible.

 

[Monsanto]

Buy now, pay later is an accurate headline.

Previous generations bought the market while the current ones can't enter it.

 

[arXiv]

This is a great service for responsible organized people with money in their 30s who have most of life figured out already. It's quick interest free financing. But if you don't meet the criteria above and either aren't great at managing money or simply don't have enough to buy it outright then you need to stay the hell away.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

For the record, I’ve used these payment plans in the past and fully had the money to buy outright. But why do that if I’m not paying interest? I’m responsible so missing payments is impossible.

i literally don't see the point in this for people with established credit, i guess they're interest free, but i pay my CC off each month and get points/perks, this BNPL is literally a waste of time if you have CCs you manager responsibly, even a month or two of interest is worth keeping my perks.

 

[JLova]

i literally don't see the point in this for people with established credit, i guess they're interest free, but i pay my CC off each month and get points/perks, this BNPL is literally a waste of time if you have CCs you manager responsibly, even a month or two of interest is worth keeping my perks.

My CCs have shytty perks so I wasn’t losing anything there. 0% interest while inflation ripping at over 10%. Hells yeah!

 

[Kenard]

For the record, I’ve used these payment plans in the past and fully had the money to buy outright. But why do that if I’m not paying interest? I’m responsible so missing payments is impossible.

If your not taking the money and investing it why not just pay up front and not run the risk?