@, your reply is unnecessarily defensive - and unfair to Lyndal.
Lyndal prefaced her comment about Afterpay being a way to get goods on a layby system with "To me", making it clear she was simply expressing her personal view. She then explained further that she herself would not purchase goods in that way, that if she cannot purchase an item in full at the time of purchase, she would not buy the item.
There is nothing selfish and ignorant about her comment.
However, please note that nothing was said about the funds for expensive purchases being instantly available at any given moment. That is clearly not the point, since otherwise Lyndal might have said something like "I don't need layby or Afterpay because I'm rich, rich, rich, and a Maserati costs mere pocket change for me."
Rather, could you see this perhaps referring more to the mindset that seems to have crept into Australians with middle incomes or lower incomes, where many - all too many unfortunately - live beyond their income, have sufficient credit card to cause a problem for themselves, and buy rather a lot of things which strictly speaking aren't necessary? That is a fair statement and covers a general pattern of financial behaviour which is acknowledged as being true.
We live in a consumer society. Australians have become accustomed to credit card debt. There are households where expenditure outstrips income. The Australian household that does not have a big screen TV is rather rare, even when the household doesn't have a lot of money to splash around... but we have become convinced that we need large smart TVs; we have become convinced that we need smart phones and iPads and goodness knows what else.
The fact that enough families DO have credit card debts and DO live from salary day to salary day makes it obvious that the problem with us as a society isn't whether or not we're financially secure, but rather that we want an awful lot of things and we believe that those things are our right, a necessity in this day and age.
It isn't that "not all of us have that luxury". It's more that we should save up for items rather than have the "I want it NOW NOW NOW" attitude that empties the purse faster than a speeding bullet. When my parents wanted to buy a television, they saved up. When they wanted an electrolux, they saved up. They needed a car? They saved up. They bought when they had saved up enough money.
I have learned wonderful life lessons from my parents, and this is not the least of them. As a general rule, when I want to buy something that costs more than my funds on hand, I save up until I have the total and can pay. I honestly believe that this is the best way of budgeting for purchases, and that layby or any similar method of paying later is a financial straitjacket, and has the potential to lead to financial distress.
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