Comment by skybrian

The world has a lot of buildings. Buildings are valuable. Every building you see, unless it's been abandoned, is owned by someone or some entity that's responsible for acquiring, protecting, and maintaining it. Some do a better job than others.

Not that landlords do construction work themselves - that's a different industry. But someone has to arrange financing. Many renters are not trusted by banks enough to get a mortgage, often for good reasons. They still need a place to live, though.

Someone has to try to prevent people from damaging the buildings and repair them when they are damaged. Maybe that's the super, but someone has to hire them. The people who damage buildings are often pretty nasty.

In theory, the state could do this. In some countries, the state does a lot of it. But someone has to do it. It's an essential job, and if not a landlord, there will be a manager that does pretty much the same thing.

Just about everything can be outsourced, but it adds overhead. The labor doesn't go away, it just gets moved around.

Not everyone is ready and willing to be responsible for a building.