But doing so has always been more confusing for me compared to “regular” payments with a credit card anywhere else, and has on overall been a negative experience for me.
I really don’t understand why anyone would prefer to use them at all.
What am I missing? Can anyone help me understand?
As to why it's popular with consumers looking at https://www.klarna.com/uk/smoooth/ , seems like they're offering months of interest free credit and also the implication is that using Klarna doesn't affect credit score.
It'd be interesting to know how their credit risk setup works.
It may be different in different countries but the thing with the interest free credit is that once you don't pay on time it is converted into a revolving credit with high interest rate and something like a 60 months payment plan.
Klarna have also historically made up own names for fees to circumvent regulations for regulated fees. They were among the first to remove days of grace and among the first to use a fixed number of days from purchase to due date.