The Atlantic
Jan. 10, 2023
The 'buy now, pay later' bubble is about to burst
Many Gen Zers have rejected traditional credit in favor of new-age layaway programs. "We have sort of indoctrinated younger borrowers in the idea that having credit-card debt is bad," said University of Arizona marketing professor Anastasiya Ghosh. Ghosh's research involves polling consumers about which method of spending makes them feel the most guilty. "Credit cards are always the worst," she said. Conversely, when given the option between (a Buy Now, Pay Later program) and debit, shoppers made no moral distinction. Even the most prosaic items were fair game for financing. Ghosh had assumed people would tend to reserve BNPL "for (hedonistic) things that are harder to justify" – until a control group in one of her studies happily used it on groceries. "They felt absolutely nothing negative," she said, "which blew my mind."