I won't speak for anyone else, but I feel that I normally have reasonably good impulse control, even in 2016; I got into debt because a company I was working for ended up not paying me for multiple months and then shut down, and I didn't have much savings.

I think my lack of impulse control came as a direct cause of me being broke. I had previously never seriously considered any kind of payday loan because I knew they were multi-thousand-percent levels of interest, but that part of my brain wasn't the one thinking. When faced with a really tough situation, I think it's common for your "survivalist" side to kick in.

I never actually did get the payday loan because I was able to (begrudgingly) get a loan from my stepfather-in-law for the back rent, and I very luckily landed a decent-paying job shortly afterwards.

I was absolutely one of the lucky ones. It's not hard at all for me to envision a universe where I was stuck in an endless cycle of debt, and honestly I still have nightmares about that time occasionally. Not fun.