Not remotely. As someone who came of age in the 1990s, I can say with complete confidence that it has never, ever, in the whole of human history, been easier for ordinary people to access more film content than it is today. If I had to pay every single time I watched a film, as opposed to opting to "buy" (say) Big Night, I'd still take that in preference to going to a fucking video store.

But either way this has nothing at all to do with housing affordability.

My point is that the rent vs own model is taking over every industry and it's never good long-term. If you had to watch the same movie every day, and you knew that fact in advance, and your only option was pay-per-view, wouldn't that suck?

You're doing my job on this thread for me by trying to set rental up as some kind of second-class residency we should be skeptical of. I agree, that's the subtext of this corporate investment stuff: that renters are bad.

> renters are bad

Uh, no, don't equivocate "forced rent" with "renters". That's bad faith.

No, it isn't. This is literally the subtext behind the policy. You see it all over this thread: the idea that converting an owner-occupied unit to a rental, even though it lowers area median rent, is a bad thing. There's no other interpretation. If reading that makes you uncomfortable, recheck your priors on the policy itself!