It's easy to hate the shark. It spends its time prowling the ocean for a meal it usually sneaks up on before devouring in a frenzy. Then it's on to the next one. That's pretty vicious. But an animal like the shark was bound to exist in an ecosystem like the ocean, where the population of unprepared-for-being-hunted-by-a-shark fish is practically endless. Hating the shark for falling into a niche that any ancient species of fish would've fallen into if given the chance is a little bit unjustified. The shark survival strategy, as much as it's reliant on razor sharp teeth, stealth, and strength, is based simply around the probability of enough fish out there that have never seen a shark and are too ignorant to react in time to the threat of one about to eat them. If ever a fish is eaten by a shark, part of the reason why is because the fish fell into a trap it was unprepared for.
An Age-Old Appetite
Not having enough money to cover daily expenses in the budget before payday is a situation that has probably been going on in human households since civilization began. For that same length of time lenders, from financial hustlers in the Roman Forum to the modern-era payday loans, have offered services that have remained unchanged as well. Give a cash advance out to someone with with excessive interest attached, which is justified as a necessary precaution since it is a high risk loan. If the borrower can't pay back the loan in time, the likelihood of which required the high interest in the first place, then the lender makes an eventual high profit on the repayments that follow for sometime. It's not a pretty arrangement when things don't work out for the borrower, but that's the nature of the beast. This is one of the dangers of payday loans.
There was a time when they threw you in debtor's prison for not paying back such a lender, but currently they're a little less punitive. Nowadays you might get an automobile repossessed or your credit score leveled so bad you couldn't rent a storage locker. Understandably this is why so many people regard the short-term loan industry as a legion of evil villains out to ruin the lives of those most vulnerable to be victimized by their too-good-to-be-true promises of a cash advance. No matter how legal their actions are, they have the potential to destroy families. Like the shark, nobody can warm up to the idea of accepting short term lenders as anything but the scum of the Earth.
There's No Shortage of Natural Enemies
People forget there's more than just one kind of predator in the ocean. Nobody seems to form such passionate hatred for the barracuda or the swordfish as they do for the shark. Similarly, in a world where short term lenders swim amongst corrupt credit card companies, shifty mortgage lenders, and refinancing cons, it's the short-term lender that everybody wants to see hunted to extinction. It's because short-term lenders are viewed as the inheritors of a niche in the economy that has existed for thousands of years that is such a sure way to make money people don't know if they should be disgusted or impressed. We see the shark as having it too easy for being so powerful, and that's what we don't like about the animal. Conversely the barracuda and the swordfish seem to earn their meals honestly. I wonder if the fish out there who have encountered all three would agree with such a differential.
In the ocean, there are plenty of fish that are able to evade a shark attack without ever encountering one before. Maybe they encountered another predatory fish and learned their lessons from it. Maybe they had smart enough parents that passed the instinct along. Either way, or in any case, the only way fish survive sharks is by knowing what to watch out for before an encounter occurs. That's because sharks are simply always going to exist, and if they don't, another animal will take their place. There's no getting around an ocean without having to worry about predators. Just make it a habit of keeping an eye out for sharks, but never forget that in the depths of the sea there lurk many creatures and many of them, not just sharks, will do anything to make you into a meal.