/biz/ - Business & Finance

Never posted on this board before, but I'll just give a quick rundown of my background before I ask a question.

I'm 27 years old, I'm an officer in the US Merchant Marine and make a very good living with it. I do not own, nor have I ever owned, a credit card. I simply do not understand them or the point. I buy everything in cash. I use PayPal for online purchases. When I bought my property, I paid cash. I paid all of the carpenters, masons, slaters, painters, etc. who built my house with checks or cash.

Everyone keeps telling me I'm stupid for not having any credit score and I don't understand why. I understand you need credit if you want to do things like take loans, but luckily I have never had to do that.

The biggest thing I don't understand about credit cards: why the fuck are they held up as some sort of status symbol? People put up pictures on instagram and make YouTube unboxing videos for their American Express Gold Cards and shit. Why? Why is a piece of plastic so exclusive, and why do people get excited about having the ability to spend money they don't have?

>tl;dr
Why are there so many different kinds of credit cards, why are some of them so exclusive, and why do people have this opinion that buying shit with money you don't actually have is somehow a required part of being a functioning adult? Debt isn't a good thing.