Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

  • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
    15·
    3 days ago

    good god

    The statistics back up his unease. Buy-now-pay-later services have exploded to 91.5 million users in the United States

    with the rapidly checked population number I found (340.1m), that’s 26.9%

    …, with 25% using the services to finance their groceries as of earlier this year

    perfectly normal, I’m sure nothing can go wrong here. and this won’t be tied in with just the recent SNAP shit, either

    what’s the german word for “the feeling you get when you know the bolts on the rollercoaster are shaking loose incrementally and you can see the Unscheduled Rapid Disassembly Event coming up”?

    • Architeuthis@awful.systemsEnglish
      13·
      3 days ago

      most BNPL loans aren’t reported to credit bureaus, creating what regulators call “phantom debt.” That means other lenders can’t see when someone has taken out five different BNPL loans across multiple platforms. The credit system is flying blind.

      Only good things can come of this.

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        10·
        3 days ago

        right? for like 18~24mo now, the autoplag “boom” and the fucked up neo-credit-arrangements in real estate (again) have been my primary guesses for how this shit is all going to up in vapour

        and then suddenly a surprise third entrant!

    • e8d79@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      11·
      3 days ago

      what’s the german word for “the feeling you get when you know the bolts on the rollercoaster are shaking loose incrementally and you can see the Unscheduled Rapid Disassembly Event coming up”?

      The word you are looking for is “Tja”.

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        8·
        3 days ago

        I was mostly riffing on the Internet Meme of “what’s the german word for…” but you are not wrong

    • gerikson@awful.systemsEnglish
      10·
      3 days ago

      It’s so weird to see Klarna on that list, because I keep forgetting Klarna is now a huge juggernaut, not the little service that every etailer here in Sweden uses for checkout services

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        9·
        3 days ago

        let’s hope that the outcomes of this helps them become a weeeee teensy l’il curious financial service again 😶

    • nfultz@awful.systemsEnglish
      7·
      3 days ago

      My clients’ billing systems now send me invoice factoring spam every month, which is basically the same trade as a payday loan or bnpl. I worry how many other freelancers are clicking that button and how this has become so normalized, it’s bad enough out there already, without paying 2.5% per month.

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        5·
        3 days ago

        jesus, that seems insidious

        and unfortunately I speak enough ghoul that I suspect I know how that’s being sold, too! a way for companies to “manage outflow”? and perhaps a dash of “cultivating a reputable $x base” in there too?

        nvm that these intermediation fuckers are going the standard Bridgetroll[0] route too, which is also a problem

        [0] - rentseeker

      • gerikson@awful.systemsEnglish
        4·
        3 days ago

        invoice factoring

        Is that somewhat new in the US? I recall seeing ads for it here in Sweden for 15 years or more.

        • nfultz@awful.systemsEnglish
          3·
          3 days ago

          For me, I started noticing Taulia spam via a clients SAP last Jan, and Bill.com started doing similar a few months after. I think the new part is that these are now integrated into the platforms, like how Klarna bnpl is directly integrated into the ecom storefronts.

          • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
            7·
            3 days ago

            I’d be lying if I told you I knew! my most interesting interaction with technisch-mechanisch deutsche has been through the lens of shorthand column names in an oracle db (where truncated col name length limit caused applied). no, not kidding. that was an interesting project more ways than one!

            (very Choose Your Own Adventure db schema too, and I suspect I’m still among the only in country who have strong knowledge about it today)

    • fullsquare@awful.systemsEnglish
      7·
      3 days ago

      it’s worse than that, you should probably take number of adults (as in, 18+) as base here, and it’s 78% of them (267M), according to first random source i’ve found, so it’s closer to 34%

      from what i understand, american anomaly is that they take debt like that even when not strictly necessary in order to pump up their credit scores which might be useful later, but even then, 9% of population relies on going to loan shark the app in order to get food, absolutely nothing to look at here, move along,

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        7·
        3 days ago

        it’s worse than that, you should probably take number of adults (as in, 18+) as base here, and it’s 78% of them (267M), according to first random source i’ve found, so it’s closer to 34%

        yep, entirely correct. and the numbers will also only reflect for those that are loantakers/account holders (which implies an even smaller number), because only one person needs to take out the bnpl to groceries it up for family support

        I just didn’t have the time to dig into the numbers properly this morning when I posted

        it’s all bad. just every single fucking part.

      • mirrorwitch@awful.systemsEnglish
        9·
        3 days ago

        And most stats are flying under the radar because the Trump administration has made it impossible to get reliable data on things. But at least we live in a rational market system that optimally allocates resources, so I’m sure the decision-makers will handle this situation wisely and—

        Not wanting to be left behind, more established finance companies are racing toward BNPL now, too … What started as a niche checkout option is becoming embedded financial infrastructure.

        Morris sees this shift happening everywhere. “When I talk to some of these software companies that are now embedding payments, lending and insurance,” he told me, “and you say, ‘Okay, five years from now, where are you going to make your money?’” the answer surprises even veteran investors like him. “They say, ‘You know what, I think I’m going to make more money in embedded finance than I am in my core software.’”

        Continued Morris: “It starts off as a nice little add-on, but when the powers of the marketplace drive down the returns in the core business, it’s often these financing businesses that have the greatest longevity and market power.