# Buy Now. Pay (and Pay, and Pay, and Pay) Later.

1 Opinion May 23, 2022 Stern in the News ![Scott Galloway headshot ](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/Scott%20Galloway%20Article%20images%20230x260.jpg?itok=rSGSTSeO) By Scott Galloway >

Let’s role-play. It’s March 2021. You’re 23, a year out of college. Your last semester was ruined by the pandemic, but now you’ve got a job with a firm that’s “reinventing commerce” in a loft with reclaimed wood and catered lunches. Bars are open, your friends are coming back to the city, and your bank balance looks good, healthy even: COVID means living cheap, with free cash from the government and no student-loan payments. You lease an apartment and begin dabbling in the markets — they’re all surging. You pick up tips on Reddit, trade on Robinhood, buy crypto. One of your tokens turns a modest stake into real money almost overnight. By summer, your college crew is planning a reunion, and it’s time to invest in an adult wardrobe to signal your budding success. It feels weird to spend hundreds of dollars on outfits — but now there’s an app for that. On TikTok, try-on hauls from Shein teach you a killer finance hack: “Buy now, pay later.”

It seems smart, almost responsible. You know credit-card debt is how boomer-economy consumers wrecked their finances. And BNPL isn’t credit — it’s debit with fixed payments taken right from your bank account, and you’re told there’s no interest or late fees. It helps you plan your spending, letting you spend more now — so you do. You use Afterpay to buy sneakers from Reformation, and Klarna to defer payments on tickets from Live Nation, and Affirm to get a Peloton. Your approach to spending feels New Economy — the traditional laws of finance don’t apply.

But now it’s May 2022. Inflation is at a 40-year high, there’s war in Europe, and the NASDAQ just registered its worst month since 2008. Crypto is awash in scams; unicorns are talking layoffs. And soon, when the student-debt vacation ends, you’re going to start getting a three- or four-figure bill every month. Good luck finding the cash to make payments you still owe on fast fashion and that Peloton.

Read the full [*New York Magazine* article](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/buy-now-pay-later-is-coming-due-for-all-of-us.html).
\_\_\_
*Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern.*## More from Scott Galloway

- [Why Every Dad Should Kiss His Son.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/why-every-dad-should-kiss-his-son)
- [America’s False Idols.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/america-s-false-idols)
- [The Thin Line Entrepreneurs Must Be Careful Not to Cross.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/thin-line-entrepreneurs-must-be-careful-not-cross)
- [Web3 Promises to Put the Internet into the Hands of the People. Don't Believe the Hype.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/web3-promises-put-internet-hands-people-don-t-believe-hype)
- [The Case for Breaking Up Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google ](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/case-breaking-amazon-apple-facebook-and-google)