I see your point: ownership provides better control. You can do things that are not possible with a rented item. Sometimes this makes perfect sense. I'm glad I'm not renting my computers and can do whatever I please with them.
Still for some other items for which the amount of control you need over them is acceptably low, you can rent them. I'm fine buying a ride in a subway train or a taxi.
These two approaches have different strong and weak sides, so they will probably coexist for a long time. What we see now is that people start to need less control or maybe even less use of certain things. I don't own a car which is perfectly reasonable in NYC; if I lived outside a metropolis I'd own one. Not owning a house has drawbacks but also has upsides; possibly these upsides, like more mobility, start to overweigh the downsides. For instnace, living in San Francisco or on Manhattan is quite possible when you rent an apartment, but buying a house there is mostly for millionaires.
Still for some other items for which the amount of control you need over them is acceptably low, you can rent them. I'm fine buying a ride in a subway train or a taxi.
These two approaches have different strong and weak sides, so they will probably coexist for a long time. What we see now is that people start to need less control or maybe even less use of certain things. I don't own a car which is perfectly reasonable in NYC; if I lived outside a metropolis I'd own one. Not owning a house has drawbacks but also has upsides; possibly these upsides, like more mobility, start to overweigh the downsides. For instnace, living in San Francisco or on Manhattan is quite possible when you rent an apartment, but buying a house there is mostly for millionaires.