@lain @meowski @lnxw37b2

That's because money now can be used to do something that nets you more money later. Fifty bucks of investment into your own lemonade stand could result in you ending up with your money back plus profit by the end of the week, or month. A combination of time and labor, plus that seed capital, leads to that profit. Because of that, you'd rather have fifty dollars today than fifty dollars at the end of the month, because of what you could turn it into in the intervening time.

To put it another even simpler way, if I wanted to borrow fifty bucks from you, you wouldn't be able to do anything with that fifty bucks for as long as I was borrowing it. If I promised to give you back fifty bucks at the end of the month, there would be nothing in it for you, your financial options would be restricted to the tune of that fifty dollars that are no longer available to you for the month. Not to mention the risk that I might just be a loser who loses your money and can't pay you back at the end of things. So the value of lending me fifty bucks at no interest is negative to you.

That's why I can make it worth your while by offering to pay you back seventy dollars at the end of the month, and to have someone enforce that I pay back the full amount. Now in exchange for not having access to your money and taking on some risk that I'll default, you get to make twenty bucks off of me in a month. Now you have a reason to try it. There's something in it for you. And for me, whatever plan I had in mind that I needed fifty bucks to fully realize, I'm prepared to offer you seventy bucks because I think I'll make more than the difference there.