Okay, I repeat my question above: if you can afford to pay over 12 months (meaning, you don't go into debt to do so), what's inherently wrong with doing it instead of waiting 12 months and paying all at once, besides ideological reasons?
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.