> rent one

Not without a driver's license you won't... ;-)

Of course I meant, in the extreme case where a driver license is “needed”, you still don’t need to buy a car.

It's not "needed" to rent a car, it actually is needed. Buying/leasing a car versus combining traditional rentals, hourly rentals, and Uber/Lyft/taxis/etc. (plus other forms of transportation) is mostly an economic decision. But not having a license means that you don't have a lot of those options available to you. IOW, there's a big difference between not owning a car and not having the legal ability to drive a car.

I'm kinda curious, do rental rates change for people who own their own car versus people who just have a license? I mean, you definitely have to buy the insurance coverage then, but is that coverage itself more expensive because it's assumed you're not going to be quite as good a driver as someone who does it every day?

Edit: quick google search says some companies might refuse you, but you should be able to pay $15 or so extra per day to get full liability and comprehensive coverage if you have no insurance of your own already. And check your credit card because some of them have limited built-in coverage you can leverage.

Definitely agree with you, but doing the math in my case it’s just better not to spend the time and money getting a driver’s license. Unless you live in a city where you need to drive.