Which is part of being good with money.

For instance paying your rent on time. I.e. something that can be proven other ways than using your credit card.

Those are all part of your credit score as well. Er, rather any late payments that get reported may be a part of a credit score.

Yes once you start paying with your credit card that's not the discussion here. The discussion is how to even get a credit card to begin with.

Being non-american I went trough this and have a pretty good idea on how it works and some of the myths.

I guess some of the confusion is around the before/after a card.

This. It is also the reason the system seems weird to me - their incentive is not same as mine as a customer.

It's pretty normal for opposing incentives to exist between customers and providers (counterparties).