Affirm is an unfunny joke on dumb consumers that will break the economy

 

...along with Afterpay, Klarna and all the rest of these awful "Buy Now, Pay Later" apps.  Why?  Well, the obvious reason is because they encourage overconsumption and debt.  They do this by offering what are usually interest-free installment payments over a short span of time.  Since consumers already believe that $30 x 6 < $180 because 30 is smaller than 180 DUH, there's no difficulty in convincing them that while they can't afford $180, they can certainly afford $30 six times- heck, that's easy-peasy I have thirty dollars right now (or, at least I will when my next paycheck hits my account.)  There's a reason why the length of the average car contract was four years in the 2000s, five years in the 2010s and is now six years- because the only way you can con people into overbuying for a car they can't afford is to make those monthly payments smaller.

But in the very first sentence, I pointed out that these Buy Now, Pay Later companies offer INTEREST-FREE payment plans, so what's the big deal?  Well, the Big Deal comes in examining how these companies make their money.  They do it by charging merchants high user fees.  And merchants pay these fees because the average user of Buy Now, Pay Later services ends up spending 20 percent more than the person using a credit card or cash.  In other words, the high fees are worth it to the merchant.  And how can the merchants make that money back?  The way they always do-  by raising prices.

See where this is going?  Afterpay, Klarna, Affirm etc. are all contributing to inflation, and not just on impulse items like clothes, shoes, food delivery and jewelry.  They are being used to buy groceries now.  And using them is becoming alarmingly normalized; check out a recent post where a family uses one to pay a TOLL.  

So expect prices to keep going up as stores adjust to customers who Buy Now, Pay Later using one of these fee-sucking, economy-draining services.  Even if you don't use them yourself, * you're going to be paying more because the store has to keep paying for the option.  And ultimately, you're going to be living in a country where everyone is in debt paying off the clutter sitting in their living rooms.

*and you don't use them yourself, right?  You're way too smart for that.  Nobody really wants to party like it's 1929.