[spoonjim]

It's things like this that make me believe that open democracies like the US are doomed to be outcompeted by countries run like China/Russia/Singapore (some work better than others). Buy Now Pay Later for consumer goods is obviously bad. An effective government should be able to just say "it's gone" because it's bad. But in the US there would have to be a law passed, which would be essentially impossible, and even if it was, it would be extremely hard to define the boundaries.

[matnewton85]

I'll quote my comment elsewhere:

"BNPL providers are held to far higher standards than Credit Card, Personal Loan, or Payday Loan companies. I'm not sure I understand the HN addiction to attacking them.

Unlike all the examples above, Afterpay doesn't charge interest, has capped late payment fees, and has a very low debt ceiling. It's the perfect way for younger people to learn how to manage debt."

I should have mentioned that their late payment fees are (very) low.

If you want to get rid of BNPL, you'd have to get rid of literally all forms of debt - BNPL is far and away the most consumer-friendly form of debt that I know of.

[spoonjim]

Yes, a high functioning government would essentially wipe out 2/3 or more of consumer lending. As an example, Singapore literally forces some of your income into a savings fund that's just for housing, retirement, and healthcare. It's not something optional -- the nanny state literally taxes you into being a fucking adult. And it works.

[matnewton85]

The Australian government does the same thing; and also permits BNPL.

BNPL has been thoroughly, thoroughly investigated by the Australian government because people have the same conclusion as the HNers here - 'they must be doing something wrong'

But if anyone does what I do, which is to look more deeply into the topic, they'll discover that this is actually the least predatory form of consumer debt (if not the least, close to it), and for this reason governments are content to continue with it.

[kriops]

> Buy Now Pay Later for consumer goods is obviously bad.

On the contrary it frees up significant economic resources, and so is obviously good. But access to capital, like the good itself, isn't free. In both cases: Don't buy what you can not afford.