this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2024
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Summary

Gen Z is increasingly relying on “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) services for holiday shopping, with spending projected to rise 11.4% this year, totaling $18.5 billion.

These services appeal to younger consumers with limited credit histories but can lead to overextension, as they lack centralized reporting and encourage overspending.

Experts warn of accumulating fees, particularly when BNPL plans are tied to credit cards.

With inflation and rising credit card debt already burdening Gen Z, consumer advocates caution that these services may worsen financial instability despite their convenience.

(page 3) 41 comments
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

They’re just waiting for the trickle down

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

BNPL is a credit card but in app.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Nah more credit check hits

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Never pay them anything back!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

The absolute irony of the paywall

[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 weeks ago

lol time to write an article vilifying young people who somehow aren’t thriving in our flawless economic system. What self-indulgent idiots they are. Where’s my Pulitzer?

[–] [email protected] 58 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

I swear on everything that I've read this article word for word years ago but replace gen z with millenials

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

We didn't have this new term buy now pay later to the same extent, the millenials version just called credit cards credit cards.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

“Buy now pay later” has been around for at least a decade. It wasn't ubiquitous like it is now though. I knew things were bad when I went to pay for 2 pairs of shorts and they asked me if I wanted to stagger the payments. The total cost was $40.

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Why isn’t this framed as predatory lending?

[–] [email protected] 64 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Because Capitalism demands exploitation

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

doesn’t mean we need to blame people (victims) rather than the organizations

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Actually yes. Yes it does.

The poor are poor cuz they don't work hard.

Can't budget to help the homeless cuz some of them might trade food stamps for drugs.

If you didn't want that baby you should have kept your lega closed.

Blaming the victim is as American as genociding the indigenous. Happens all day every day. Because this is the bad place.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's not just American, it's very British too.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

After ending genocide at home it just exports it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Ah, the great American Dream. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and work hard to ~~enrich the millionaires profiting off your labor~~ earn that $0.12 raise you've been asking for.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

If were going to slip into a period of hyperinflation then taking on tons of consumer debt is just good financial planning.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Isn't that only if wages increase alongside inflation

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago

This is correct, although usually you'd want to go into debt on something like housing but let's be honest, that's not possible. Why not pay an 80 dollar door dash across four payments?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

Yo dawg I heard you like installments:

Recently I noticed my credit card lets me move transactions into installments. So, you can put an installment into installments now. When you go bankrupt you can pay off your debt in installments too.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

In this age where you can quickly spend thousands online (or even in person) without having to actually watch any of it disappear, and corporations are hiring psychologists to make their services and platforms as addicting as possible, you're gonna get a lot of this

I see everyone in the comments saying that Gen Z have checked out and are waiting for the end but I really don't think so.

I think it's never been easier to manipulate a person to separate them from their money and things are deliberately designed that way. Big shiny upgrade now buttons, services forcing you onto 7 day free trials for premium plans upon signing up, expensive yearly subscriptions for products that ten years ago would have been unthinkable as anything other than one time purchases, you name it. Capitalists have used the internet to minmax their penny pinching.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

People do tend to learn defenses against the environment in, so Im surprised.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

to take this a step further, imagine someone who has been exposed to these services designed to be addictive their entire (digital) life, as well as being pushed further into these services by their peers who are equally addicted and the "influencers" they look up to that are paid by these services.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Is this actually worse than the five figure credit limits gen x had extended to them? Boomers had store layaway, which really seems ideal for holiday shopping, but there's no money to be made with it so of course it's fallen out of style.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago

five figure credit limits gen x had extended to them

chase gave me a $17K limit before i was even 20 in the 90s. i know more than a few people who would have had that maxed out the next day

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago

Predatory debt gonna be predatory

[–] [email protected] 53 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Does it matter. It seems that a lot of them have checked out already as they see the world burning around them.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 weeks ago

Hard to blame them.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 3 weeks ago

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

[–] [email protected] 153 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

When you think there's no future, there's no need to plan for one.

Gen Z knows that they're gonna have bigger problems than debt.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

What else are you going to do? Save for a house who's price rises faster than you can earn money?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

And meanwhile your bank or brokerage gets to play with that money for a real investment return

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

And the wage earner's taxes will be used to bail them out when they make a bad bet

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago

Yeeeup. Socialism for me, austerity for thee

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

One big recent consequence is it destroys credit short term, like less than a decade.

It's recoverable, but every one counts as a new line of credit, which automatically gets closed about a year after payment.

So unless you also have a lot of zombie credit cards, it's going to keep debt utilization waaaay up, number of accounts waaat up, and keep average age of accounts low.

This snowballs, especially if they ever do but a house. If they day ever comes, they're going to lose alot of money again.

It's like experiencing turbulence on a place so you scream YOLO and start playing Russian roulette.

If the plane goes down, it doesn't matter. If it's normal no big turbulence, then it's just as much an increase in risk as playing on land.

They assume they'll have bigger problems, and they may be right. But it's should still be concerning.

We got a while before kids are unironically bumping this tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG1CuunXLsI

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago

This snowballs, especially if they ever do but a house

They know this will never happen. They're not buying houses. They're renting until they die on an overheated planet that no one wants to do anything about. Where one party rolls coal and the other pretends that the inflation reduction act makes up for the harm caused by the record oil production they brag about.

They know they're fucked, and there's no reason not to take on as much debt that they can't pay back as possible.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

(since no one can afford a house even with perfect credit)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

They assume they’ll have bigger problems, and they may be right. But it’s should still be concerning.

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