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277 points cebert | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.412s | source
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PostOnce ◴[] No.44361768[source]
Theoretically, credit should be used for one thing: to make more money. (not less)

However, instead of using it to buy or construct a machine to triple what you can produce in an hour, the average person is using it to delay having to work that hour at all, in exchange for having to work an hour and six minutes sometime later.

At some point, you run out of hours available and the house of cards collapses.

i.e., credit can buy time in the nearly literal sense, you can do an hour's work in half an hour because the money facilitates it, meaning you can now make more money. If instead of investing in work you're spending on play, then you end up with a time deficit.

or, e.g. you can buy 3 franchises in 3 months instead of 3 years (i.e. income from the 1 franchise), trading credit for time to make more money, instead of burning it. It'd have been nice had they taught me this in school.

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1. Guvante ◴[] No.44371454[source]
Buy now pay later at 0% is what these programs offer which does not align with what you are saying at all.

Used properly these provide liquidity by spacing out payments.

Certainly there are economic concerns about not being able to afford groceries today but liquidity (especially free liquidity) isn't fundamentally worthless.

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2. lxgr ◴[] No.44371882[source]
Used properly, BNPLs are strictly inferior to credit cards.

That said, one of their practical advantages is that they’re harder to use improperly than credit cards.