I still don't understand why an effective 5% "discount" (not counting the effort to actually invest the money) makes the $5000 pill any easier to swallow. The money is still gone.
You're right about the pill thing, I considered that myself after I wrote my other comment. It's something psychological; I know I'm still paying $5000, but it's easier to do that when I'm only paying $400 per month over 12 months versus one big payment of $5000. Even though I can afford the $5000, it's much harder to convince myself to pull the trigger when I'm looking at that amount of money. I guess that's why it works and all of these big online retailers are doing financing.