[varispeed]

It's interesting psychology. You can do buy now, pay later + get it later without Klarna. Just go to checkout, divide the sum by how many instalments you want to pay. Then open your banking app, setup a monthly transfer for that instalment to savings account, setup reminder in 3-6 months, then in 3-6 months just buy it. Just few more steps, but for a human it's more attractive to get item now and feel the pain later, rather than the other way around. That's how they make money.

[notpushkin]

If you do have money, it also means that you get item now and keep your money invested. If it’s the sort of BNPL that has no fees as long as you pay on time (not sure if Klarna does that, but I’ve seen a lot of those), technically it’s better to always use that.

[Marsymars]

Technically, yeah, but the overall benefit is pretty small. If you average $x/BNPL period, you're dealing with the cognitive/time overhead of buying everything with BNPL for the reward of whatever investment return you can get on $x. For an average household, that might be like a hundred bucks per year on average?

[scuff3d]

That's a big problem we have right now. It's just way too easy to buy shit you don't need with money you don't have. And the trap of paying over time completely warps your perception of how much you're spending. Even if you're responsible and make all the payments on time and don't pay a massive amount of interest.

[thaumasiotes]

> That's a big problem we have right now.

The problem isn't new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3ZJKN_5M44

[scuff3d]

Yeah, you're right.

The difference is today it's far easier then it's ever been to make cripplingly bad financial decisions.

[bombcar]

We’ve perfected it - you used to have to do a lot of work to sell yourself into debt slavery, now you can do it incrementally, over time!

[taneq]

That’s the complete opposite of “buy now, pay later”, it’s “buy later, pay now”!