I keep local backups of everything, so restoring the files is trivial. In the git repo, I have instructions on how to set things up: what packages to install, where to place certain config files and what to put in them. You could use containers to make it even easier, but I haven’t found the need for it yet.

I mostly use AWS. I have about five different accounts going and I delete/remake them each time the free tier runs out.

I don’t have enough testosterone to care about them anymore

Is there dust on the ash?

Fascinating stuff. I understand he doesn’t have a solution to the problem, but it might help if there was a way to help someone identify what their core beliefs are.

Yes, you’ve already said this but it doesn’t answer the question. Repeating yourself won’t change that. What I asked when I originally responded to you was why the simpler alternative of renting at cost isn’t acceptable. So far, you’ve told me

A tenant never gains anything once the terms of the lease expire […] as long as the price of rent is a positive number.

[…] Paying a non-zero amount of rent is always parasitic.

Which can mean any of the following:

1. There are no costs associated with renting so at-cost is 0
2. You are not aware of what there is to gain from renting over owning
3. You do not need those benefits yourself and therefore no one else does either
4. You disagree with the concept of money being an abstraction for physical goods and human labour (There’s something special about owning home equity that is different from having the money to buy that same equity and that can’t be translated to a monetary value?)

I’ll rule out #1 because you also said

Then landlords should send me an itemized invoice that details each of the expenses incurred while I’ve been a tenant, a breakdown detailing how any rent payments cover the cost of those expenses, and a payment plan that we can negotiate to ensure both parties are getting fair deals.

Which means you do acknowledge the existence of a cost to rental units.

So what is it that you don’t agree with? Is it one of the things I’ve listed, or did I miss something?

Can we keep the context of what we’ve previously discussed instead of rewinding the conversation and repeating ourselves? I thought we agreed earlier that it’s fair for tenants to pay for expenses related to usage of the home and it makes sense to distribute that over time across all tenants.

[…] Imagine being the tenant that moves in just as the roof needs replacing and getting hit with a bill in the tens of thousands for a roof that you’re only going to be using for a year or two.

Then landlords should send me an itemized invoice that details each of the expenses incurred while I’ve been a tenant, a breakdown detailing how any rent payments cover the cost of those expenses, and a payment plan that we can negotiate to ensure both parties are getting fair deals. […]

It sounds like you understand now how that number comes about and why it isn’t zero, right?

[…] I’ve already told you I don’t agree. Paying a non-zero amount of rent is always parasitic.

[…] What’s this business about itemized bills to make them fair if the bills are zero?

Landlords don’t do that. Until they do, they’re parasites. […]

Did I misunderstand what you’re saying here? I understood it as meaning that an itemized bill for your rent with the ability to negotiate in order to come to a fair deal for both parties is sufficient condition to qualify as non-parasitic.

You can’t convince me that a landlord can provide potentially multiple properties worth of value over the span of a lease

Nor would I ever try to because I don’t believe they do either.

We’re not talking about what they currently do though. The question is what they should do in order to be fair and non-parasitic. Where the threshold lies between parasitic and non-parasitic.

So far, I understand that you’re convinced ownership is necessary if any payment is involved. What I don’t understand is why*. We agreed that people should be paid for their labour. What makes home rentals special in that regard?

* Mainly to understand how a system with such a rule can make sense.

I wouldn’t be trying to convince you of it if you agreed, would I?

What’s this business about itemized bills to make them fair if the bills are zero?

We already agreed that market rate is too high. What I’m trying to convince you of is that there exists a non-zero positive value that is reasonable to charge someone as rent. It sounds like you understand now how that number comes about and why it isn’t zero, right? How to ensure that the deal is fair is a whole other matter. The point is that such a deal exists.

The fact that many of these expenses don’t occur monthly is precisely why most people prefer having them split up and paid over time instead of being billed at the time of the work. It makes for much more predictable expenses, and we like predictability.

Imagine being the tenant that moves in just as the roof needs replacing and getting hit with a bill in the tens of thousands for a roof that you’re only going to be using for a year or two.

Right, so that makes sense then. We don’t need an exchange of physical goods to make a fair exchange because labour and expertise has value. And ownership is not a service that merits payment. We agree on both of these points.

Renting out a home doesn’t have to involve any work on the part of the owner, but it can. Think of all the work you need to do as a home owner and that you wouldn’t need to do when renting. These are the services you get.

Sorry, I’m having a hard time making sense of your must-transfer-physical-object stance. How do you have a functioning society without services?

once the terms of the lease expire

I feel like this is the main point of contention. No, you’re left with no new physical assets after spending that $1. But why is that a problem? Not everything is about physical possessions. If you purchase a meal and eat it, you’re left with nothing at the end of the meal. If you pay someone to move an old couch out of your home, then you’re left with nothing after they’re done. If you pay a taxi to drive you home, you’ve again gained nothing physical at the end of the transaction. But in all these cases, you’ve gained something, or else you wouldn’t spend your money there.

When you pay a landlord for shelter, you’ve exchanged some sum of money so that you’re protected from the elements and live to see the next day. Similar to buying a meal and eating it.

Right, because the system is broken.

Exactly. So what’s not to understand? A broken system means problems exist, and you can do things to compensate for those problems. Things that provide value to others. Now, we can go into what it means to “need” something and whether we ever actually “need” anything, but that’s a whole other discussion and not the one we’re here to have. In this context, “someone needs to do X” means that doing X provides value to someone else.

It’s basically co-ownership, which is already an established way to buy and own a property.

Co-ownership refers to the ownership structure, doesn’t it? I’m talking about the threshold you proposed for the landlord-tenant relationship to not be parasitic.

the landlord ends up with more than they started with (equity in a property + profit from rent) and the renter ends up with less than they started with (lost money in rent payments).

And I’m saying it doesn’t have to be that way. Do we at least agree that if the landlords sets the rent at $1/month, then the transaction will be to the benefit of the tenant? And if you set it to market rates, then it benefits the landlord. There exists some middle ground between $1/month and market rates where it’s a net neutral.

I don’t understand what you mean by this. No one needs to rent anything to anyone, if resources are distributed fairly.

But resources aren’t being distributed fairly.

If a renter pays the same amount of money as the landlord pays towards their mortgage, and the renter has paid rent for as long as the landlord has paid the mortgage, the renter should have as much equity in the property as the landlord does.

That’s a rather arbitrary rule. You would still need a bunch of stipulations on top of that to make sure it’s fair to the renter.

Assuming you do have all the right rules in place, what makes this setup more desirable than simply renting at cost?

Just so we’re on the same page, we’re still talking about OP’s question, right? My definition of parasitic requires being a net negative to the “host”. The threshold between parasitic and non-parasitic is at net neutral for both parties, and we’re discussing where that line is.

People who don’t want to buy a home at that location would still need a place to live. Someone needs to rent it to them. Until someone comes along to create government housing or whatever, this is the best we can offer as an individual.

On the topic of transferring equity, how much is reasonable equity? Why not rent at cost instead of charging more and giving it back in a different form?