CNBC Select published a guide on financing Apple products. Four tools. Four different ways to not have enough money for a phone but buy it anyway.
The premise here is that Apple raised prices and the solution is debt. Not buying last year's model. Not waiting. Not reconsidering whether you need a computer that costs more than a used Honda. Just debt. Four flavors of it.
This is financial journalism in 2024. A company charges more for a rectangle with a screen and the editorial response is "here are some creative ways to go into hock for it." Consumer advocacy at its finest.
The target audience is someone who sees a price hike and thinks "I need a payment plan" instead of "I need to leave the store." That person exists. That person has a credit score. That person is reading CNBC Select right now and nodding along.
Apple could price the iPhone at four thousand dollars and within six hours there would be seventeen articles explaining how to finance it over seventy-two months at 23% APR. The phone would still sell out. The articles would still get clicks. The cycle continues.
Imagine being so financially illiterate that you need a published guide to figure out how to borrow money for a gadget. Then imagine a media company looking at that person and thinking "this is our demographic."
The best part is calling them tools. Not loans. Not payment plans. Tools. Like a hammer. Like something that builds value instead of interest.
Somewhere right now a guy named Derek is reading this article on his cracked iPhone 11 and thinking "finally, a responsible way to upgrade." Derek will finance an iPhone 16 Pro Max at 19.99% and feel smart about it because CNBC called it a tool. Derek will make minimum payments for three years. The phone will be obsolete in two.
But at least he'll have four different ways to f*ck himself.
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