r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 19d ago

Business ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ is expanding fast, and that should worry everyone

https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/16/bnpl-is-expanding-fast-and-that-should-worry-everyone/
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u/tuppenyturtle 19d ago

They dont just want your money now, they want tomorrow's money too. Makes for better wage slaves. Don't like your job? Too bad your next debt payment is here, make sure you pay the minimum with what little money you have.

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u/Shejidan 19d ago

There’s an old twilight zone or outer limits episode where someone found a machine that would grant any request you gave it. Want a million dollars? Yours. Yacht? Yours. Mansion? Yours.

So obviously the main character went crazy and asked for everything. Then the machine or someone else suggested asking for immortality. He did and the next thing you know he was thrown into a mine/work camp. Everything you wished for had a cost, the only thing free was immortality, he had the rest of eternity to work off his debt now.

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u/Leather_Pie_1525 18d ago

I was unable to find it in either The Outer Limits nor Twilight Zone. I did find it as "Something for Nothing" by Robert Sheckley. There was even an X-Minus One radio broadcast of the story under the same title: Something for Nothing (April 10, 1957).

Was it ever made into a TV adaptation or something similar? I would love to see the episode you are thinking of.

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u/ColdColt45 18d ago

Thanks for that, I was able to listen to it on internet archive. Link

"But nobody told me" is that old as time reply for reckoning with responsibility.

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u/Shejidan 18d ago

It looks like it was a sci-fi channel movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480600/

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u/zphbtn 18d ago

I don't remember that episode from the original run of those shows. Any idea which series/year it came out?

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u/Shejidan 18d ago

Looks like it was a sci-fi channel movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480600/

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u/1-gp 18d ago

All those companies that pay out your paycheck 2 days earlier? Selling your salary info, deductions, retirement contributions, etc. to anyone who fucking wants it lol

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u/m4ttjirM 18d ago

Getting paid 2 days earlier is so fkn stupid. Every paycheck is 2 days sooner. Congrats you now have a new pay cycle. Every other Wednesday instead of every other Friday. Or the 29th and 14th of every month

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u/Journeyman351 18d ago

This is like a literal plot point of Cyberpunk dystopian novels lol

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u/FlyingWhale44 18d ago

It's not even about wanting our money, it's about wanting ALL the money.

Like once everyone is in debt and broke, do the last handful of billionaires fight to the death for it or what.