> There is nothing wrong with passive income. Owning shares or bonds, or having a bank deposit is also "doing nothing" yet no one would blame anyone for it.

The wrong part is that having passive income of that kind is a privilege that only few can reach, and it works by squeezing the rest. It isn't possible for everybody to have such passive income.

Are you seriously comparing owning shares with taking advantage of the need to have a home to take ~30% of someone's monthly income?

they are very comparable. Owning shares in a company that takes money to provide essential services? That has been the model of capitalism - fee for service - for a long time, and it has worked. The service gets provided, at the right price that the market can bear ,and still produce a profit for those providing the service. The alternative is to not have that service provided at all!

Then please stop providing the service.

If we had no landlords renting we would all own domiciles.

So please, stop providing these 'services'

If we had no grocery stores we would all own farms. Please stop providing these services

In an ideal world.

There's an entire political ideology which totally disagrees with you -- Georgism. Basically most of capitalism is fine, shares, bonds etc. but natural monopolies and value derived from land are not the same thing and must be treated specially. There's one very pithy way of expressing this which goes back to Adam Smith -- taxes on land do not cause economic inefficiencies in the same manner as other taxes.

As long as you pay for maintenance and don't raise the rent, it seems like it would be the same as an investment.