Criticism Grows As Microsoft Adds ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ Options to Edge Browser

Having credit can be an amazingly useful tool. Particularly so when an unexpected bill comes along that you don’t quite have the finances to immediately cover. It should be noted though that credit can also be an exceptionally dangerous thing. Granting the illusion of free money, and the freedom to buy things you can’t really afford, it can be very easy to quickly rack up huge debts. And with the water rising and rising, often many people don’t realise the trouble they’re in until they’re practically (well, metaphorically) drowning. – Put simply, if this hasn’t happened to you personally, then I’m practically certain you know someone to whom it has!

Following the most recent update to the Microsoft Edge, however, many people have started noticing that when they get to online checkouts, a pop-up, coming directly from the browser, is now giving (in some instances) the option to pay for the bill on finance. As you might expect though, the ‘feature’, if it can so be called, is already coming in for a lot of criticism from both individuals and professional organisations.

Microsoft Edge Introduces ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ Options!

It should be noted that this new option has currently only seemingly been introduced for American users. The implications it offers, however, are undoubtedly worthy of attention. The concept is rather straightforward, if your browser detects a payment request in the region of $35-$1,000, it will give you a drop down option, directly from the browsers notification bar, to pay for the item/s over a set period of time (usually 6 weeks).

While charges clearly apply, this is more based on the payment transactions rather than any kind of traditional interest rate. The irony is, therefore, that the more you spend, the better the “deal” actually is. – The criticism this new ‘feature’ has received, however, largely boils down to two categories. Firstly, given that this is built into Edge, Microsoft is clearly getting some kind of commission from each successful application. In other words, they may have finally found a way to truly monetise their internet browser. Secondly though, with credit being dandled in front of a lot of people now, this could easily put pressure onto people who can’t afford things going on a mad spending spree!

What Do We Think?

When Microsoft first launched its new ‘Edge’ browser in early 2020, many people, including ourselves here at eTeknix, were very positive at the huge improvements it brought over the original version. This new integration of yet more third-party bloatware, however, isn’t going to help them win over any fans. In fact, it’s a move that will likely only cause the people it did win over to start considering moving back to something else.

Edge was, and just barely, still is good. If Microsoft keeps this up though, they’re going to completely ruin any goodwill they’d managed to win back from consumers! – Let’s just hope that financial laws and legislations prevent this from ever being added to the UK or European versions.

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!