alt Hacker News> We should be careful to distinguish when credit-cards are used for credit purposes versus the common scenario where they're just the default/convenient payment method and a debit-card could substitute just fine.
Well I mean technically they are always for credit purposes, even if they are the "default/convenient payment method"? That's part of the advantage, but it's still credit. You get to spend and pay later. It wouldn't be a very good evaluation for credit purposes if it didn't work like credit? Or am I misunderstanding you?
It's just to say that "credit" isn't just about an in vs out group anymore than debt is. Or anymore than "currency" is? I'm not sure how the distinction you make helps clarify that question. The point is why would credit be for people you know, and currency for people you don't? Isn't credit just a particular agreement around said currency?
Let's compare two scenarios:
1. I live in a village. I buy flour on credit from the miller, because I lack funds and they know I'll be able to pay them back after I sell my own textile goods at market.
2. I travel overseas to a store I've never seen before and I will never see again. I transact $100 on my credit-card purely because my debit card won't work for some reason. I leave with the goods, reminding myself to pay off the balance ASAP with funds I already possess when I get back to the hotel and a laptop.
Technically they both involve "credit", but it's not really equivalent. The first case involves a direct relationship in a community, while the second is indirect, a stranger trusting my card-company. In the first, incurring a debt is an intended feature, in the second the temporary debt is just a weird inconvenient quirk that I'd rather skip entirely because it makes more work for me.
In short, just because someone uses a credit card doesn't necessarily mean it's "credit" in the anthropological sense.