A Boring Dystopia

It wouldn't be an issue at all we were paying to a normal person who's got ex. To pay for their mortgage, for college debt etc. The issue is that we are paying evil corporations and not normal people. We are fueling gentrification and we can't even boycott them

@zedgeist How about rent of things, as opposed to rent of living space? I'm specifically thinking of the hardware I'm renting for this Fediverse server. A network connection, power, and cooling come with it. In my view this is more acceptable than having to rent a house or car. (Related topic: is having a car moral? Related to that: Is there a moral argument to be made for our against living away from a population center? And related to that: why the Hell do people refuse to wear masks during a pandemic?)

Is my renting that hardware more paying for a service than straight rent? There's certainly the aspect of my not being able to afford the hardware cost up-front and just renting space, network, and power.

Ideally I'd just run the server in my cellar, but I live in the woods and trees fall on the power lines all too often. (Loop to the question of the morality of living away from population centers.)

If the concept of rent must exist, at least have it go to the government. It's obvious that in private hands it will eventually favor the most rich, and it should not be used as a means to speculate. Unfortunately, political leaders never learn, and if they see thing X that moves a lot of money that they can trickle down off of, fuck the consequences of thing X, that thing is going to be allowed. Crypto, AI, housing, cloud PCs, they will kneel away their autonomy bit by bit.

With all due respect, I can't agree with this. It's theft when a multi billion company buys home properties and then rents and manipulates the market. If someone buys a house and succeeds into buying himself another studio apartment for future kids and in the meanwhile rents it, that's not theft, pal.