Asklemmy

I'm glad you have enough financial stability where you can pick and choose your landlord. It's unfortunate that there are plenty of people who can't "vote with their wallet" on account of not having all that much cash in there. And plenty of landlords who don't fear bad reviews because there's no place they can even be reviewed at, and even if they were to receive such a review housing is an inelastic good and in too short of supply for people to be picky about it.

Additionally, the government has no incentive to charge you more that what it costs to run public housing, whereas the landlord has a profit motive. Even if the government charges you more than how much it costs to build and maintain buildings, this money isn't send to a pit - it is used to build roads, railroads, sidewalks, provide healthcare, and to build so much more infrastructure and provide various different essential services. If you give it to a landlord, it's used to fund martinis and vacations on Ibiza. What's the better deal?