跟读练习: The 'Buy Now Pay Later' Trap, Explained - 通过视频学习英语口语
正在创建课程...
1
Why is paying for so addictive?
2
They literally once financed a bottle of body wash.
3
You know what?
4
I'm gonna after pay this.
5
It's gonna make me feel less guilty to pay it in four installments of $81 or whatever.
6
That's like having a Black American Express to me.
7
I can use it anywhere, anytime I get ready.
8
I'm using Klarna to pay for these Chris Browns.
9
Look at this chart right here.
10
This shows the total non-housing consumer debt in America over the last 10 years.
11
And in 2024, Americans collectively owe more than $5 trillion, which is enough to pay for every NFL,
12
NBA, and MLB team 10 times over.
13
And to make matters worse, we are constantly surrounded by psychological tricks and hidden fees to drive us further and further into debt.
14
The worst of these tricks, the buy now, pay later programs that have been designed to take advantage of young adults.
15
So when you buy a $100 pair of shoes and you only have to pay $25 that day, and then the pair of shoes show up at my apartment three days later, the shoes are $25.
16
Why do I care if in two months I have to pay another $25?
17
I don't know me two months from now.
18
She can deal with that.
19
I Now Pay Later is a short-term financing option that is offered by companies like Affirm, Klarna, or Afterpay.
20
You'll typically see these options pop up on e-commerce stores, offering you the ability to buy what you want today while deferring your payment over a certain number of installments.
21
So if you're looking to buy a new suitcase for a trip you have coming up and it's going to cost you $300, dollars instead of paying that all today you could buy the suitcase today
22
and then split the 300 across four equal interest-free payments
23
and you might think great interest-free i can just sign up for these payments
24
and then worry about paying it sometime later down the road
25
but it's not quite
26
that simple these buy now pay later programs aren't necessarily groundbreaking
27
financial technology in fact buy now pay later programs are kind
28
of a newer modernized version of the old school layaway programs
29
that you would see at stores like kmart
30
and sears these layaway programs allowed you to place a deposit on an item like a dishwasher, for example, and then the store would reserve
31
that dishwasher for you to collect once you had paid off the dishwasher through their installment plan.
32
But these layaway programs kind of fell off throughout much of the mid-20th century, mainly due to the introduction of credit cards and revolving lines of credit.
33
Instead of using a layaway program and waiting to collect their item, people could just swipe a credit card, get their item today, and then worry about paying off that over the next couple months or years.
34
The only The problem is that a credit card will incur interest.
35
People realize that if they didn't pay their credit card down on time, they would end up owing more than they initially spent on the item.
36
So along came the modern marvel that is buy now, pay later, which gave you the best of both worlds.
37
Get your product today, paid off over a longer period of time, all while doing it interest free.
38
And that idea began hooking people in because buy now, pay later has seen some explosive growth over the last five years,
39
going from $2 billion in transaction volume in 2019 to 24.2 billion in 2021.
40
And it's projected to reach as high as $122 billion in 2025.
41
But this explosion wasn't just happening in a vacuum.
42
It's actually part of three major cultural shifts
43
that we've been seeing first is the financialization of everything meaning
44
we've moved from a completely cash-based society to a society in
45
which we look at even a five dollar coffee as an
46
opportunity to finance the transaction second we have the rise of social media driven consumption as influencers showcase luxury lifestyle
47
and products buy now pay later allows the average consumer the
48
ability to to experience those same things without actually incurring the cost today.
49
And third, we have the post-pandemic spending boom, which has consumers using buy now,
50
pay later as a form of revenge spending or buying things they feel like they missed out on during the pandemic.
51
Combine all of that with the declining financial literacy among most young adults, and you have the perfect storm to make buy now, pay later explode as a new mentality.
52
But why is this even a problem?
53
If they're not charging interest, how can they actually be taking advantage of me as a consumer?
54
To answer that question, you first need to look at the differences between buy now, pay later programs and traditional credit cards.
55
Because on the outside, they're basically the same thing.
56
Both financial devices allow you to buy something today
57
that you might not necessarily be able to afford or be willing to put cash down today for.
58
But a credit card usually involves some sort of approval process, application, review, and a credit report hits.
59
Meanwhile, buy now, pay later programs offer an almost instantaneous approval for your purchase in the moment.
60
Additionally, as we discussed, credit cards can accrue interest if not paid off by the end of the month.
61
And that rate can be at crazy high rates, usually around 19 to 23%.
62
On top of that, if you're late with your payment or you miss a payment, credit card companies can also add on late payment fees
63
that just end up water falling you into insane amounts of credit card debt off of fairly simple purchases to begin with.
64
And on the other hand, buy now pay later offers 0% interest, which sounds great, but that all depends on if you actually pay your payments on time.
65
If you don't, you'll be subject to late payment fees
66
that can range anywhere from two to $15 per payment
67
and going all the way up to 25% of the total value of the purchase you made initially.
68
And with all that said, buy now, pay later still might sound like a perfectly good alternative to credit cards, which is exactly what they want you to think because buy now,
69
pay later programs weren't necessarily designed to help the consumer like you or me.
70
They were designed for stores and brands that want to sell more through their website or in their stores.
71
After all, that's why brands are willing to pay two to 3% more
72
for their transaction fees to use a buy now pay later program versus a traditional credit card processor.
73
To give you an example, let's look at a $100 purchase.
74
If you bought a $100 item using a normal credit card on their site, the brand was typically going to incur about a $2.50 charge to process that payment.
75
And on the other hand, if you were to use a buy now pay later program, that transaction fee that the brand has to pay goes from $2.50 to about $5.
76
But the merchant fees are just the beginning when it comes to buy now pay later.
77
So let's look at how these companies actually make money beyond just charging the brand that hosts them on their website.
78
First, like we just discussed, they're gonna collect that merchant fee, which is anywhere from four to 6% of the transaction price.
79
Second, they profit from late fees, like we talked about earlier, which has turned out to be a pretty substantial revenue source for companies like Affirm and Klarna,
80
because one in every three users of these Buy Now, Pay Later programs actually ends up missing a payment at least once.
81
And third, every purchase that is made reveals something about you or your shopping habits.
82
And these companies have realized that that is very valuable information for other brands.
83
So they actually harvest a lot of the data from your checkout pages
84
and then sell it to other brands that can then use it in their marketing or in their ad target.
85
And finally, they benefit from the sheer volume of loans being opened up by packaging yours
86
and everybody else's debt together and selling it to larger financial institutions.
87
They can make money even when you pay on time.
88
In other words, they've created a system where they win no matter what happens to you financially.
89
So now let's look at buying an iPhone for $1,000.
90
When you reach the checkout page, you have three options.
91
Number one, pay the full $1,000 up front.
92
This is the simplest, cleanest, and easiest way to get out of the checkout scotch-free.
93
Option two, you could use a credit card with the typical 22% APR to purchase the phone.
94
And if you only made the minimum payments, you would end up paying about $1,480 over the course of five years, with 480 of that being the interest alone.
95
And option number three is you could use AfterPays for payment installment plan where you pay $250 today
96
and then $250 every two weeks until the plan is paid off, which sounds like the best deal to you.
97
You see, brands have mastered psychological manipulation throughout their website, but specifically on the last hurdle, which is the checkout page.
98
And they do this through four key tricks.
99
First, they exploit what psychologists call the pain of paying.
100
By splitting the cost over a longer period of time, your brain actually registers less financial pain than paying the full amount up front.
101
Second, they trigger what is called the temporal discounting, which is our tendency to value immediate rewards more than future benefits or otherwise known as instant gratification.
102
Pay just $25 today and it's yours sounds a lot better than waiting and saving up for it.
103
Third, they will create artificial urgency by simulating limited time offers in the checkout page.
104
And finally, they use colors and shapes to direct your eye exactly where they want you to be looking.
105
Have you ever noticed that the buy now, pay later button is often highlighted in a brighter color and it's sometimes even pre-selected when you reach the checkout page?
106
These aren't accidents.
107
These are specific design decisions to short circuit your brain to
108
making a financial decision more on an impulse than with rational thinking.
109
Instead of thinking about a $100 purchase rationally and over a longer period of time, they'd rather have you just click the pay $25 now and worry about it later on.
110
And again, this isn't necessarily a bad deal
111
because people are always looking for interest-free ways of purchasing things
112
so that their money can go and earn them more money while they're paying off the other thing that they purchased.
113
But to do so requires some financial education or experience.
114
And sadly, most Americans are completely undereducated when it comes to financial literacy.
115
So the instant gratification syndrome kicks in and they buy practically everything with buy now, pay later with no real concern that they will in fact have to pay that off at some point.
116
All they're worried about is the price that they will pay today, which is exactly how you end up with this.
117
I've done groceries.
118
I've done all kinds of crap on a firm in Klarna, but it adds up and then you are in a chokehold.
119
And in some ways it is worse than having credit card payments.
120
It's crazy.
121
Because buy now pay later is so easy to do.
122
People are starting to use it on more and more occasions where it's really not meant to be used.
123
Instead of just using it on a big purchase like a new fridge or a TV,
124
they're starting to use it on smaller things and truly financing items that have no business being financed.
125
A crazy story that we recently saw is that Klarna is now on DoorDash,
126
which allows you to finance your $15 burrito over four payments of $3.75 instead of paying the full $15 upfront.
127
Again, not a necessarily terrible thing when looked at in a vacuum,
128
but when you expand this to consider that someone who's financing a burrito is also probably financing a lot of other things, that's when the real problem starts to arise.
129
Bad spending habits like this lead to what we call loan stacking, pretty much what it sounds like, taking out loan after loan after loan and stacking them on top of each other.
130
And because Buy Now Pay Later programs make it so easy to do so, most consumers don't even realize how much debt they're actually accruing.
131
In fact, in 2022, 63% of buy now, pay later borrowers had more than one loan going at one time.
132
And this is where it gets really scary.
133
Because these programs are designed to offer credit with little to no approval process, it's almost like they're targeting people that don't know how to manage their money.
134
All they see is, oh, I can buy this $1,000 thing for $250 today, and they just click buy.
135
When in reality, over 69% of buy now, pay later users are already in debt on another credit card.
136
And 28% of buy now pay later borrowers are between the ages of 18 and 24 years old.
137
Most of these people don't even understand the concept of how a credit card works, and by giving them this buy now pay later option, it's almost like they have this unlimited stream of money that never needs to actually be paid off.
138
Again, don't get me wrong, there are definitely some advantages to the system if you know how to play it, but the vast majority of people using the system are not taking advantage of it,
139
they are just getting taken advantage of.
140
So what do you do?
141
As a consumer, should I completely stay away from buy now pay later, or are there some circumstances where it makes sense?
142
And to answer that question, the most important piece of advice I can give you is to never spend more than you currently have,
143
whether that be through a credit card or a buy now, pay later option.
144
If you don't have the cash in your bank, don't spend it.
145
And that is by far the easiest way that you can keep yourself out of credit card debt.
146
And if you feel confident in your financial abilities, feel free to use a credit card or buy now, pay later option to earn more interest on your cash while sitting in your account versus just spending it immediately.
147
But if you don't feel confident about this, treat your credit cards in a buy now pay later program as
148
if it's hooked directly up to your checking account
149
if you spend 100 that's 100 coming directly out of your
150
account another tip i have is to avoid stacking these loans
151
because that is where things can get very messy very quickly
152
if you start financing weekly expenses like gas groceries or
153
that friday night chipotle bowl it becomes a slippery slope
154
because it is 100 times easier to get into debt than it is to get out of debt
155
but there you have it the truth about buy now pay
156
later these companies spend millions of dollars in psychological research to get you to spend more than you can actually afford.
157
But now you know a little bit more about how to protect yourself.
158
And if you like this video, make sure to check out this video that covers the business of Formula One
159
and how billionaires use debt to fund their crazy hobby of racing.
📺 同频道
✨ 推荐视频
B2323 句
‘Buy Now, Pay Later’: A New Wave of Consumer Debt
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
90 句
What Makes Expensive Websites Expensive
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
38 句
The Poverty Trap
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
180 句
Fun new scam taking over YouTube Shorts
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
293 句
How to Make Money So Fast It Feels Haram
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B22
130 句
How Airports Actually Make Money?
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
131 句
Inside Gap Inc.’s Plan To Rewrite Its Story for Gen Z | Behind The Business
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
43 句
Business Partner B2 Unit 4.1 Alternative video
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
249 句
What is Fast Fashion and how we can break up with overconsumption?
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B29
46 句
What does Visa do? The answer might surprise you
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2172 句
The WORST Financial Situation Caleb Hammer Has Ever Seen (Sad)
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
151 句
Could You Spend $1 Trillion?
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
本节课你能学到什么？
这节课我们通过一段关于“先买后付”陷阱的视频，练习英语听力和口语表达。你会听到真实的对话场景，学习如何描述消费现象、分析社会趋势，还能掌握实用的金融相关词汇。同时，我们会结合“英语影子跟读”技巧，帮助你提升口语流畅度和语调把控能力。
核心词汇与短语
- Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL)：先买后付（一种短期融资方式）
- Installments：分期付款（如视频中提到的“four installments”即四期付款）
- Interest-free：免息的（注意“interest”在这里指“利息”）
- Revolving lines of credit：循环信用额度（信用卡的典型特征）
- Revenge spending：报复性消费（后疫情时代的常见现象）
影子跟读练习技巧
视频的语速中等，对话部分口语化较强，适合进行“shadow speech”练习。建议你这样做：首先完整听一遍视频，熟悉内容；然后逐句暂停，模仿说话人的语气和节奏，重点关注“why do I care if...”这类口语化表达的语调。对于数字较多的部分（如“$5 trillion”“10 times over”），要练习快速清晰地说出。
如果觉得跟不上，可以使用“shadowing site”提供的慢放功能，先慢速跟读，再逐渐加速。记住，影子跟读的关键是“同步”，尽量在说话人结束后0.5秒内跟上，这样能有效提升你的反应速度和口语流畅度。坚持练习，你会发现自己对英语的语感和表达能力都有明显进步。
视频中的语法
说话人最常用的结构，并附上视频中的原话：
| 结构 | 视频中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 条件句 if + 从句，will/would + 动词 — 条件及其结果 | If you don't, you'll be |
| 被动语态 be + 过去分词 — 强调发生了什么，而不是谁做的 | have been designed · is offered · were designed |
| 现在完成时 have/has + 过去分词 — 过去发生但与现在仍有关联的事 | have been designed · has seen · we've moved |
| 定语从句 who / which + 从句 — 补充说明人或事物 | trillion, which is · boom, which has · cards, which is |
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。