I love the theory that if Klarna folds, there will be some small window where you can pay using klarna and get something for free. It will never happen but I love the idea.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
135 points (98.6% liked)
News
30260 readers
5564 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Who would’ve thought that giving “loans” to financially unstable people might not be the brightest idea…
I have no way of knowing for sure, but I keep hearing people are actually using loans for day to day stuff like groceries.
In what world is that sustainable for longer than like, a month?
Amazing, people financing dinner might not be able to pay it off.
They'd better hire some people who specialize in burrito repossession
This shit is wild. You'd figure the capitalists would have a sense of self-preservation and not let things get this bad.
Why give a shit when you can get bailed out? It's almost like you can be carefree when you're on corporate welfare. What's wild is what you feel like you can try when you have a safety net.
But they make money even if the people don’t pay. They just package debts and sell them off. And if there’s a big crisis, they still make a lot of money buying the dip.
The capitalist class is infinitely more class conscious and understanding of the system as it really is than the working class.
Capitalists with capital deal do well in and after a recession or depression.
I swear to god this is literally what happened 100 years ago with credit causing the great depression in the 30s. Are we at a 100 year cycle?
That's was a part of it. The dust bowl aggravated it further and done other things occurred
Not the same. This is worse. People chose this
No, we are in 20y cycle
Fudge.
I fear you are right. Maybe we can get a housing crisis?
I do keep wondering how these buy now pay later companies see this playing out over a long time.
Klarna was founded in 2005, and Affirm in 2012.
Maybe it's just the same old tech-startup playbook; Live a good life for 10 years of funding until you get acquired, or hired to another good life fin/tech-startup.
As the other comment says, they're making their money back in fees. For every dollar they lose because of this, they're making multiple in fees. It really shows you how bad these services are for you financially if they're able to be profitable.
I've never used one of these services. Are they like a credit card in that they have interest/fees only if you don't pay off your balance? Or are there upfront fees to using the service?
I haven't used one either, but I'd be surprised if there weren't usage charges, or something similar.
I mean isn't this one obvious? Fees. There's a ~$4 fee for the basic 4 payments every 2 weeks plan. There are also numerous plans that span various amounts of months. THESE plans have APR up to 30%. Add in your 'I missed a payment, here's a fee" and it's basically just a credit card with more rules that requires ~1/4th payment upfront. They also treat each purchase as a separate loan, so you don't get the benefit of one single monthly payment against the whole balance- each loan must be individually paid - adding up to a lot more than a credit card with a similar balance. And then add in selling marketing data of what customers purchase. It's a simple and solid business structure.
They also charge the store quite a cut. Because they have such high checkout rate... In some industries it's allegedly 30%. Paypal does 3.9% or something like that.
Oh, wow!
They also typically require a minimum purchase amount, so you have to spend more than you might have planned in order to use them. That $45 purchase suddenly becomes $55 because you needed to add something to go over $50. Those amounts add up over time and result in overspending.
I have not seen that so far. I don't click further on this for a payment option, though.
So you have no clue what you're talking about about
Hello, can your comments please add to the discussion?
Because you're not actually contributing to the conversation and are just trolling. Or you're dumb. I'm not sure.
Your comments that are solely insults are annoying. Please stop.
It’s a simple and solid ~~business~~ exploitation structure.
Please explain how a credit card, especially the spam ones that show up in your mailbox unasked for, is any different.
Everyone is ranting on these services like they're something new. They're not.
These are available to a much wider audience. And the placement at the checkout is very manipulative.
I never made that claim. Both can be true.
These are unsecured loans. Your business only works as long as people are paying off their loan. When the economy tanks, when unemployment goes up, when inflation makes food and rent super expensive..., you can only go for so long when enough people stop paying you back.
What did you think I meant?
I honestly don't know what you mean because if any of that happens all finance gets fucked. This is no different than a payday loan and those have been around forever. Are you just learning today that predatory loan practices exist, and gasp thrive?
Again, you pay more in fees than they give you in loan. They can and will absolutely wreck your credit and sell your debt to collection agencies. And you also realize that the starting credit limit on these things is like $200, right? They're not giving out $5000 credit lines just for signing up. Actual actuaries have done the work to figure out the risks.
Credit cards are unsecured loans too. The average person only gets a secured loan when it's a car payment or a mortgage. Unsecured loans are incredibly common.
You have no clue what you're ranting about, you just want to be mad about something.
Why you keep trying to demean and personally attack people in these comments.
Why are you so dense and think correcting you is attacking you?
Why do you continue to demean in your comments?
Some people are just miserable and want to bring everyone around them down. It's sad, really.