| kowenicki said: You dont seem to be able to grasp this. Credit cards afent a good deal, most loans arent a good deal, not a single store card is a good deal. Thats isnt the point... |
I'm not missing the point, you're making a bad analogy.
Loan offers vary greatly. They are not one in the same. Some are bad and some are good. Either way, they offer you a way to purchase large ticket items that virtually NO ONE can buy without saving for an obscene number of years.... even a lifetime for many.
Credit Cards help you obtain the above by increasing your credit rating as well as allow you to have a safety net or simply not carry easily lost/stolen cash. Here they also are inherently good products. Its just stupid people who abuse them.
However, a $200 console is something just about anyone could save up a few months for and obtain. Or easily put on a credit card and pay off in a reasonable amount of time and pay less in interest than the $80 they are overpaying here.
This deal is closer to US cellular business and their contracts. Verizon and others offer you discounted or free phone if you sign a two year contract. However, the big difference is also the reason why they are a good deal for the consume. They don't charge you more for signing a contract. You could either pay full price for the phone and have no contract OR you can get the discount and sign a contract. The monthly price for the service is unaffected.
Here Microsoft is taking the discount of the console and adding that and then some into the service price. So not only are they locking in a two year customer to their service (perfectly fine), they are also charging the person more for that package overall. That is where the deal becomes bad. That is not equal to a finance charge as its not tied to the console but to the service.
