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Comment by restes | Hacker News Reader

> You essentially can make money buying something.

Well, only if you can earn more over 12 months than the asset you bought depreciated. I think a better way to look at it is that you can earn a small discount.

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With the 0% interest rate in Apple’s Pay Later, if you can’t earn more than that you have a gambling problem.

The parent specifically mentions depreciation which you don't seem to be accounting for by only considering the interest rate of the loan.

Fine, but the depreciation is not all that significant. Hypothetically, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from buying the device with Apple Pay Later for 0% interest, selling it unopened for full (or close to full) value, and making money from arbitrage that way.

As a result, depreciation can be written off, I think, since I would argue if you do buy it and keep it you’ve gotten value from it even if it isn’t cash.

I'm not sure this will fly, or at least I think it depends on the issuer and the law in the particular jurisdiction of the buyer. I remember reading in the fine print of one issuer of BNPL in my country a statement that the buyer does not have full ownership of the product until after payment of the final installment of the loan has been received and confirmed by the issuer, implying that the product cannot be sold to a third party until the loan has been repaid in full. I am unsure if such a statement has any legal force but buyer beware.

And completely ignores the utilisation of the product being bought.

Depreciation costs should already be factored into the capital investment. You should not be accounting for it twice.

Y'all, the original post was edited, but the quoted bit about being able to make money by buying things was indeed wrong, you don't end up with more money by buying stuff this way. GP seems to have edited their post to talk about buying at a discount instead, as was suggested by this post you're all now bagging on.

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