this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
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A Boring Dystopia
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Can you agree it's at least exploitative?
It can be exploitative, but it's not automatically so. Both parties benefit from the agreement in different ways.
Last I looked into the difference, (in my area) if you planned to stay longer than three years, owning was the cheaper option. Less than that you'd be better off renting. Assuming no big house repairs of course, and no crazy house value changes.
Cheaper isn't always the goal. Home ownership comes with a lot of stress and time investment that you don't have with renting.
I don't get how this above conversation isn't just /thread.
7 people who downvoted, care to explain? Genuinely curious what your take is.
Just because both sides benefit doesn't mean that it's not exploitative. A slave gets the benefit of housing and food provided by their master, that doesn't mean the slave isn't exploited.
Like slavery a landlord uses a claim to property to extract labor / wages / money out of a person that doesn't have a claim to property. That is exploitative.
So if I hypothetically own a home and rent my basement suite out, you think I would be inherently exploiting someone? What's my alternative? What if I need the rental income to afford the mortgage?
I feel like following this train of thought results in either nobody owns anything to keep it fair, or everyone is entitled to a home for free, both of which are not realistic.
If all the money just goes to the interest on the mortgage then no, you aren't exploiting them, the bank is exploiting both of you. If the person is paying for your equity then you are benefiting off of that person's misfortune of not being able to own a house.
Many slave owners were relatively poor or heavily in debt, Washington wasn't solvent until after his presidency, Jefferson too. They would probably say they have to work their slaves to pay off their debts, doesn't make it right.
Sort of, both anarchists and communists support the abolition of private, not personal, property, ie stuff you own not to use, but to make money off of. So you can own a house to live in, you can't own a house to rent out.
Not necessarily, the third option is public / social housing. The government owns housing and operates it at cost instead of seeking a profit. So all the money used to pay for housing is going to produce and maintain housing instead of into the pockets of landlords. It's not exploitative assuming the government is democratic, just as taxes aren't exploitative if you get a say in what happens to them.
Well, I can't say I necessarily agree with everything, but I can see your points.
Thanks for sharing your POV.
Of course it's exploitative, that isn't a question. The entire purpose of rent is to exploit. The down voters are people who recognize that it's complete nonsense to suggest housing rental could ever not be exploitative.
The downvoters are probably people who have never owned a home and don't realize that it has its own set of issues that renting doesn't.
If it really sucked so much to own a home, the upper class wouldn't be buying as many of the fucking things as they could.
Owning a home is 100% upside 0% downside. You have your name on it and someone else pays for it. You use their money to pay other people to maintain it, skim the rest and fuck off to the beach. If you fail at this you wouldn't last an hour at a real job.
Sounds like you've never dealt with home ownership. It's definitely not 100% upsides.
Renting you don't have to keep $30k on hand in case you need to replace your roof or HVAC. Renting you're not saddled with an asset that you have to unload before you can relocate.
And the wealthy aren't buying as much residential property as they can because they find home ownership preferable to renting.
Oh woe is me, I could literally fill a swimming pool with other people's money, please feel sorry for me
The mistake you're making is assuming everyone who rents out a property is wealthy.
It doesn't matter whether you suck at hoarding other people's wealth or you're good at it. You're still a shitty person either way.
K
I don't mean to be shocking, but this feels very much like "she orgasmed when I molested her".
The other option is homelessness. You rent at the barrel of a gun. How could you possibly call that consent?
I dunno man. When we moved into our apartment we got a new water heater, new washer/dryer, new kitchen sink, and HVAC repaired within the first couple weeks. We've gotten multiple smaller things fixed as well including exterior tuck pointing to fix a leak.
Sometimes I lament not owning, but that would have all been out of pocket if we had bought a property as is with those issues. Didn't cost us a dime.
There are undeniable benefits to renting. I rent. It's still a for-profit business in the end, though, and per capitalism, they'll fuck you as hard as you let them.
But I also fuck them as hard as they let me. And in my city and state, which have very strong tenants' rights protections, my fucking goes a long way.
Good on you.
It's hard for most people who see rent rise faster than salary. Which is the case for most of the United States.
You say that as if the cost of home ownership isn't also increasing faster than salary. This is not a function of landlords/renting.
Agreeing: Appliances, repairs, taxes, HOA fees, and utilities are all going up in cost faster than salary. The only homeowner cost I can think of that isn't going up is my mortgage, which is fixed-rate. With a variable-rate mortgage, even that could be going up.
It's important to be aware of the fact that as long as we allow landlords to exist, they will work tirelessly to get rid of all of these regulations. They have the money and power to do so, and their condition depends on it.
"Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we have to continually pay."