[philwelch]

The risk is spread out over all the different purchases made by you or your family. The risk that everything breaks at once isn't particularly high, since things tend to fail independent of each other. You're still bearing a risk, but it's also an EV-maximizing move.

[sukuriant]

Or you could pay up front/at regular intervals (health insurance? homeowners insurance? renters insurance? Car insurance? extended warranties, etc), and reduce the surprise factor, thereby permitting you to spend money on other things, knowing you won't need to spend more money on {car, house, health} because it's already taken care of ahead of time.

To some people, the value of peace of mind is huge.