What began for many as a way to pay for concert tickets and vacations is becoming an ordinary tool that Gen Z and millennial shoppers use for food, contact lenses and trash bags.
A lot of the knee-jerk reactions reek of avocado toast and bootstraps against The Youths™ and the article starts off a bit as living beyond your means, I shook my cane and felt it too reading the headline at first.
But honestly, think about how these financing options are smoothing out paychecks for young people and low income folks, giving them more of a buffer in actual cash to deal with day to day stuff that might not be covered by these services. And anything that can put the screws to credit card late fees and interest and the fucking scumball payday loan industry is absolute tits IMO.
I remember being poor and hungry early in life… absolutely would have taken advantage of predictable lower payments on as much as possible just to have more cash around because I knew just how likely it was to try cranking my junker of a car one morning and realize I’m walking to work for the next few paychecks.
think about how these financing options are smoothing out paychecks for young people and low income folks
What actually happens, every time, is that prices go up until financing is the only way to afford anything. Debt detaches prices from reality. It breaks unaffordability as a mechanism to keep prices down. Student loans are how college tuition got so high, you require student loans. Mortgages are how housing prices got so high, you require a mortgage. Some of it is increased competition from people who were simply too poor to be in the market - some of it is plain old greed.
Low-income families are hit hardest, because they get roped into this shit for things other people can still afford. Rent-to-own furniture winds up costing them multiple times what anyone else is paying, due to long-ass lease terms. It becomes a loan with triple-digit interest.
Depending on how hoity-toity your taste in literature might be, see either David Graeber’s “Debt: The First 5000 Years,” or Sam Vime’s boots theory from Discworld.
A lot of the knee-jerk reactions reek of avocado toast and bootstraps against The Youths™ and the article starts off a bit as living beyond your means, I shook my cane and felt it too reading the headline at first.
But honestly, think about how these financing options are smoothing out paychecks for young people and low income folks, giving them more of a buffer in actual cash to deal with day to day stuff that might not be covered by these services. And anything that can put the screws to credit card late fees and interest and the fucking scumball payday loan industry is absolute tits IMO.
I remember being poor and hungry early in life… absolutely would have taken advantage of predictable lower payments on as much as possible just to have more cash around because I knew just how likely it was to try cranking my junker of a car one morning and realize I’m walking to work for the next few paychecks.
How old are Gen Z kids? 12-26 years old? Man, I was broke as shit from 12-26 too. Didn’t even have avocado toast money.
What actually happens, every time, is that prices go up until financing is the only way to afford anything. Debt detaches prices from reality. It breaks unaffordability as a mechanism to keep prices down. Student loans are how college tuition got so high, you require student loans. Mortgages are how housing prices got so high, you require a mortgage. Some of it is increased competition from people who were simply too poor to be in the market - some of it is plain old greed.
Low-income families are hit hardest, because they get roped into this shit for things other people can still afford. Rent-to-own furniture winds up costing them multiple times what anyone else is paying, due to long-ass lease terms. It becomes a loan with triple-digit interest.
Depending on how hoity-toity your taste in literature might be, see either David Graeber’s “Debt: The First 5000 Years,” or Sam Vime’s boots theory from Discworld.
Poor man buys boots biyearly, rich man buys boots once. Guess who pays more?
This comment is just dripping with boot licker spit