1) Buy for cash the camera now. You don't have any cash in hand afterwards, and the camera is depreciating in value immediately as an asset only offset by whatever you do with it.
2) Buy via BNPL with no interest for 12 months, and pay exactly a 12th a month. You have the camera, but you also have 91% of your cash in the bank that /does/ get interest or can be used for anything else like investing in shares. You still have liquidity and can assumedly use the camera to generate some cash doing weddings or whatever as part of your hobby for one year.
3) Save cash where you are getting similar rates of interest as 2 for 12 months once you've identified you need something. Buy the camera a year after you needed it, you have lost the opportunity of 12 months revenue from maybe one wedding a month? The price is either affected by inflation after a year, or more hopefully its gone down due to competition with other models, but who knows. Also do you still need a camera? you've certainly lost out on a years experience to know if it was worth it.
BNPL makes plenty of sense if you can or cant afford something, more so if you can.
Having my funds reduced to 91% the rest of the year is waaay worse for me, than having it reduced to ~0% the rest of the month. Because, the rest of that month, I'll be super-vigilant, I'll be acutely aware of why I have less money than normally, I know not to make anymore purchases, I know that this month is not for an extra treat, because I bought the other thing. Next month I'll be back up to 100% capacity.
This affects my model of my financial situation, because, it's a camera then.. ~91%, it's a new toaster there ~86% and then ~40% and ~20% and now I get into the dangerous "poor" mindset, it's well proven (and I can personally attest to this being a very real effect) that having less money makes it harder to be financially vigilant, there's opportunity cost* for once, but there's also a tendency to "treat" oneself more because things feel tight, there's a tendency to short-sighted savings (the more expensive pr roll toilet paper, versus the cheaper bulk option that has higher up-front cost for instance).
Now, to begin with, I'd go into "savings" mode a month before buying something expensive, so that I'm not at ~0% for a month, I'd never do that.
* Sure, there could be 100% opportunity cost right after paying in full for something, but the recovery to full capacity is also quicker. I really prefer the large, immediate consequences over the smoothed-out slow-squeeze.
Seriously, OP never mentioned investing in a business equipment but wanting a camera. Also, that camera will depreciate no matter how you paid for it, but you conveniently mentioned it only in the scenario 1.
For the rest I actually agree with you and think credit system is predatory and that if one can, one should take advantage of it. Just that buying something on credit because want, and using that something to earn money are two fundamentally different cases.
Say after 10 months an unavoidable bill of $4k shows up and I got to pay it. If I'm saving up I can redirect that money. It sucks that I don't get the camera when I planned to but otherwise I'm fine.
Under a BNPL plan I have no extra money to allocate and might have to dip into Credit (potentially with high interest).
In short: Savings are fungible, payments are not.
Studies show that huge percentage of the population doesn't have any savings. For them it's particularly dangerous to have more recurring bills.
If math is hard consider your end state:
1. Without the camera, without $5000 + interest on the $1500 you borrowed.
2. With a $5000 camera, without $5000 you paid for the camera.
The state of the $4000 bill is the same in both cases, which state you prefer?
Get fucked, mate.
Cash is king. Assuming 0% interest, it's financially better and less risky to do BNPL. This is separate from all the other financial decisions like savings, etc...
It's similar with CCs. I love my CCs and get a ton of value and free stuff by using them. I also have never carried a CC balance in 20+ years. Someone who is financially disciplined is leaving money on the table when not using CCs.
The trick is knowing whether or not you're financially disciplined. And usually one finds out the hard way. It often involves a credit card or credit facility of some nature.
My wife for example does not have this ability, however I can manage it by basically controlling the amounts we have and putting restrictions on how money is spent that teach the lessons of saving that her parents for some unknown reason skipped teaching her. Lessons like 'you have X amount of cash lets save up for that thing you want' 'lets review our purchases and see if they make sense on the amount of income we have' 'yes, your friend has a need of 100 bucks and we can cover it but will giving them 100 just make them ask next time for 1000 and will it actually fix their problem or delay it?'
My wife is 99th percentile for trait conscientiousness and I'm 1st percentile. I'm amazed at the amount of money she's able to save and her level of discipline and she's generally gobsmacked at the amount of money I waste and the random shit I buy.
Having the information about what one should or shouldn't do is only part of the equation. 8t also needs to be something you can apply, and sadly some of us just can't.
You may not have one tomorrow.
You may lose your job.
You may go through a divorce.
Maybe you have to move for months because your house has been flooded.
You don't know what your tomorrow's financials look like.
The only time that it may makes sense to pay installments if if the interests are really 0% and you have lots saved anyway. At that point..why not improve one's credit score anyway.
BNPL providers typically provide 0% interest rates for longer that credit cards, which have 0% interest for anywhere from 3wks to 7wks (depending on when your statement closes relative to when the transaction settles).
If you have discipline then I don't see any problems. I might behov the industry to be forced to do more stringent credit checks before allowing it either by law or regulation.
Those who do have financial discipline should not be inhibited for the sake of those who do not.
Besides, /most/ cases of financial ruin aren't literal death. They are generally just very expensive and horrible-to-go-through life lessons.
Also, if you wait to buy something then you have less time to enjoy it, so it is theoretically worth a bit less to you.
You think it's better to not. OK.
The problem is that the above is assuming that there is no value to having the thing you want to buy.
For example: a person might be able to save for 12 months to buy a new camera, but that's now 12 months they don't have that camera. Presumably you had reasons for wanting that camera.
While there are a bunch of things I don't think it's ever good to go into debt for, your claim that there's no justification other than "I deserve to treat myself like a king" is BS.
As per usual for articles like this they pose this in context of the extremes "sandwich in payments", which I suspect if people have done that it is accidental and/or "huh? what is this like".