Microsoft is introducing a new feature in Edge allowing customers to pay for e-commerce transactions in installments – and not everybody is happy.
The ‘buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) feature is, controversially, integrated at the browser level, thanks to a partnership with third-party payments provider Zip, formerly QuadPay.
The option is similar to those already offered by many e-commerce sites and web payment providers such as PayPal.
Tacky and tasteless feature.
This seems like an overstretch of domain, really. Why should a browser/operating system be offering financial services?
The123king,
Apple has apple pay, microsoft probably sees it’s monopoly as a way to get in on the action. If government won’t enforce antitrust, everything will continue to consolidate and today’s trillion dollar companies will easily reach 10 trillion, 20 trillion and beyond in our lifetimes. But in order for that to happen they have to gobble up more and more markets. They’ve got virtually unlimited money, pay next to no taxes, have governments doing their bidding. Our world is the playground for multi-trillion dollar corporations. They get to do what they want whether we like it or not and the public at large will just accept it, because that’s what the public does…
I’m not sure the comparison is quite apt here. Apple Pay is just a way for you to pay with cards (credit or debit) without the pay terminal, web site, or app getting your card number. Any pay-over-time features are handled by your card, not Apple Pay itself. This looks more like an attempt to grab part of that card market, albeit in a rather odd way. On the surface it seems ridiculous.
darknexus,
You’re right it’s not exactly the same, but apple still charges a 3% fee on credit card transactions. And I’m not sure what kind of arrangement they have with the banks to get a cut of the merchant fees.
Microsoft may come in with promotional pricing at first and then add more fees later like google started doing this year.
https://9to5google.com/2020/11/23/google-pay-web-fees/
There’s samsung pay too, which I have no idea what they charge.
Microsoft wants to get in with it’s own transaction service, for better or worse.
At the top of these mega corporations I imagine all those modest men with lots to be modest about feel very powerful but how different are they to a random terrorist blowing themselves up? They’re not especially bright. More like a child switching on the ignition of daddy’s car to play vroom vroom. That’s why we set boundaries.
Whenever I think of these reckless and cynical corporate sociopaths I always imagine they used to be somebody’s happy smiling gurgling baby. How did they go from that to that?
Just what the working class needs, more ways to get into debt. Hard pass, Microsoft.
This has nothing to do with getting into debt and it shows you didn’t read the article but just replied with a knee-jerk reaction. It spreads the payment into 4 parts without interest and the only fee is a 1 time 4 dollar fee.
That said, this OBVIOUSLY shouldn’t be included with a browser by default and should be completely forbidden to be included with a browser that is included with the OS. This is the very definition of bloatware and dickmove
Debt is debt, and getting in the habit of paying over time for small purchases leads to bad financial decisions later on. Ask me how I know. It’s not about the interest, it’s about the mindset and handing control over to a corporation.
Can’t people just learn not to buy everything they see, or at least only if they can ? Credit should only for big expenses, like buying a house, a car or medical (only in the USA though). And a “1 time 4 dollar fee” to unlock the “achievement” is only there to get people into buying more than they really need.
Kochise,
You’re right, but I think Morgan is right too.
Debt isn’t inconsequential, it is one of the major mechanisms by which wealth is transferred from the low & middle classes to the upper classes. Banking lendors pay 0%-1% interest to the government, meanwhile consumers can pay around 6% for asset backed loans and often around 20% for credit cards. The kicker is that banks get bailed out when their investments go south…that is so frustrating.
The mere existence of debt has ballooned the prices of homes well above what the market could sustain otherwise. Think about it this way… there’s the market price of a house with little/no banking and then there’s the market price of a house when hundreds of thousands of dollar loans are out there. Even those who are critical of debt and want to be responsible face the reality that banks and debt have dramatically ballooned their costs. Whereas things used to be affordable, in many cases we’re paying hundreds of percent more than our parent’s generation for large expenses like health care, housing and schooling, mostly thanks to debt. Wages have gone up some, but not enough to keep up with the level of debt. IMHO we’d be better off in a world that didn’t have privatized debt. There would still be a market for higher education, houses, etc, but the lack of debt would result in market costs being more affordable without it, as it used to be.
That’s the point I was trying to make. 🙂 Getting in the habit of using credit for every little thing only leads to disaster down the line. I watched it happen to my parents and I was also guilty of it in early adulthood.
Our house is under a mortgage, though especially due to the current housing market I have about four times as much equity as what I owe on it. We also have a note on only one car, the rest are used/older cars I keep up myself. We have credit cards but we try to keep them paid off and basically use them as emergency funds (hospital, car breakdown, home repair, etc.) we immediately pay back via savings, so there is no interest paid on it.
@Morgan : good financial sanitary conditions leaves your wallet free to flourish. My car is from 2000, my phone used to be a HTC Evo3D from 2011 that still is perfectly usable but doesn’t charge anymore, now I’m on a LG G3 from 2014 and is kicking ass. People really should think twice about buying the next fancy shit that will only enrich people that have more wealth than they could possibly spend in a lifetime. The “American way of life” is a lie. The “economic growth” has invented anti-gravity where money flows toward the top. All what they can do is now buy massive yacht or a ticket to space to show who have the biggest… account. Anyway…
Credit is like drug. Consumerism drug. It is bad and people should feel bad.
Kochise,
I agree with your take, people do get addicted to credit and make poor decisions as a result. However I think it’s worth noting that for some people it can be involuntary. The fact that so many “other people” tap into debt to pay for things, changes the market itself such that even more people will have to go into debt to buy a house, car, pay medical bills, heat the house, etc. It creates a positive feedback loop affecting not only those who are irresponsible, but the rest of us are paying higher costs as well.
This is why so many government programs that solve problems by increasing the money available for private services are ultimately doomed to fail. Easy money always translates to higher prices offsetting the gains. Subsidies for education, housing, health care etc are designed to help lower and middle class families afford education, housing, and healthcare but they have created dramatically higher costs for consumers in all these areas.
This is why US policy has been fundamentally wrong, throwing more money at private suppliers creates more profits for the companies selling overpriced products & services. Supply based solutions can work however. Rather than subsidizing poor households to pay for profit companies, we would get a better return on investment using the money and laws to increase competition. The free market would then bring down costs.
I liken this to the cities that have introduced their own municipal ISPs instead of providing subsidies for high cost service. Additional competition does much more to improve service and affordability than using public funds to pay for overpriced services.
…I’m getting way off topic, haha 🙂
@Kochise
It’s easy to suggest people should just learn to not make bad financial choices like impulse purchases or prioritizing wants over realistic affordability. Instant gratification is pushed harder than anything else and a lot of people mistakenly think if they have enough credit to buy something, that they can afford it. Or that know they can’t afford it but give in to the temptation anyways. Financial responsibility is not taught in this country (US). It’s not a coincidence that so many Americans are one unexpected expense away from disaster. Tackling the life-ruining debt problem and systems and mentality that creates it is no easy task and for that matter, it’s no priority for those with the power to actually move that needle.
Credit is a powerful tool, and so is debt for that matter, but seemingly few people understand how to use them in ways that improve your financial health rather than wreck it.
@friedchicken People shouldn’t rely on easy money through credit, they should be paid reasonable wages instead, which in turn will allow them to buy things from their own pocket.
@Alfman Here in France, we’re taking the USA route into privatizing everything. Highways (built with our taxes), energy (built with our taxes) and soon medical cares and school. Should students get a lifetime debt for a correct tuition ?
There are things that shouldn’t get privatized. It shouldn’t be full communism, but it shouldn’t be full liberalism either. You have to set the cursor at the right spot. And of course, to sustain all of this, everyone have to pay its fair amount of taxes. Even the GAFAM.
But you know the story…
@Kochise
I agree that people should be paid reasonably but that’s only part of the equation. Even if people were paid better, that still wouldn’t address their side of the blame. Give people bigger paychecks, they’ll just buy bigger houses, tv’s, and suv’s. You know, YOLO. Debt keeps power & control in the hands of those who have it, and it allows everyone else to have temporary lifestyles they can’t afford. Being responsible, budgeting, and living within your means isn’t very appealing when the other option is being fake-rich and the envy of those less fake-rich than you.
As Morgan replied above, debt is debt. From the dictionary, debt:
“a state of being under obligation to pay or repay someone or something in return for something received : a state of owing”
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/debt
Wow Avgalen! You are the ideal customer. The effective annualized interest is 6% on $1,000 but more like 40% on $150. It is not going to be cheap for the average habitual user. And most credit cards give you maybe 4 weeks credit for free if you pay in full on time. Buy shares in Zip.
Whoever thought this was a good idea, go f* yourself.
As Microsoft is fond of doing in the past. Buy a company whose service they want to be integrated in Windows. In this case, if there are already talks of acquiring Zip, then it will be rolled out in the browser, until the government intervenes.
Microsoft has it backwards. The browser that pays you for your information will take over the world. And you get privacy for free.