>>81881069
At some point around 1989 the banks and credit card companies created a model (FICO) to determine a human being's "creditworthiness" (their word). Soon businesses of all types used creditworthiness as a standard of whether or not they should sell an item to someone on credit or give them a loan for a car or a house.
Now, if you want to ever buy anything you can't outright afford with cash you have to "build credit" or simply prove you can use a credit card responsibly. They never tell you why your score goes up or down or even how they rank you, but they do rank you and every business on Earth uses that ranking to judge your creditworthiness.
Essentially gatekeeping living. Mistakes you make with a credit card when you're 19 can ruin your life 20 years later and nobody cares. Too bad, should have been born richer.
