Perhaps I should have said "thousands of people find them necessary". For whatever reason, many people seem to find themselves with too much month left at the end of the money, and if they've no other resources they have to get a loan to tide them over. This is nothing new - these places are nothing more than pawnshops in another guise, and they've been around for centuries.

Of course it would be better if people didn't have to do this, and of course it would better if people could husband their resources to last out. But this is the real world.