I hear you on this. I was homeless as a kid, and in college I had a friend who I just didn’t understand was wealthy, as I hadn’t learned the subtle social cues outside of a small town context. I was sort of still processing the fact that yes, living for years in the back of a store and not a house was not the experience that other people had, and it is defined as being homeless. Though certainly not as bad as living out of a car or on the streets. “Homeless lite” maybe? Anyway, I told her this one day and she immediately came back with “Oh! Me too! We lived in a hotel for 3 months while looking for a house to buy!” Even trying to get a bit deeper…nope. Steamrolled into her Eloise story.

A year or so later, another friend got it out of her that she, indeed, did have a “small” trust fund for college. To her credit, she wasn’t a shitbag at least. Meant well, but just zero wherewithal about the discrepancy between paying daily to live somewhere and making up a bed every night of camper seat cushions and a sleeping bag

and all the ‘rent is evil’ idiots i know in real life… took mommy and daddy’s money and became landlords themselves and now they complain about how taxes are evil

Yeah, the turn that the Trustifarians take is always so fast. Like you can not see them for a few weeks and suddenly the locks are gone, toes confined to shoes, and they’re already clamoring for trappings as a totem of having forsaken their “sordid past.” All the whiplash from suddenly realizing that your paths in life end in the same few places, simply because your ideals force others to push you away.

It’s really not too dissimilar from Flat Earthers - outrageous ideas that at first put you in a fun and weird community, but long term are the thing that makes everyone your enemy. Though, since Flat Earthers don’t specifically reject economic methods are part of their idealism, they can fare well for longer it seems. Though I don’t have data to back that up.

People aren’t defending landlords per se. People are defending the opportunities afforded by having extra space and letting someone else pay what it costs to live there.

Renting as a concept goes back to antiquity, and this is an absolutist stupid take that makes it sound like OP doesn’t understand how real life works.

Not everywhere is a large city. Not all renters live in the same place for 20 years. Not all landlords are evil shitbags or faceless corporations. Sure, plenty are. Some are just families that are lucky to not have to sell their house if they move for work that lasts only a couple years.

I end up moving every couple of years, and so I’ve had to sublet the last part of a lease I’ve had, and gladly rented places from friends, random people on Craigslist, whatever, for weeks or months at a time. So I’m a thief because I sublet an apartment for 3 months? So dumb.

Long-term renting is really more the issue as landlords do just sit and leech and renters get nothing to show for it. But the fact remains that renting a room or an apartment is something that has since literally ancient times made more sense than huge amounts of unused housing you aren’t allowed to use. So this is actually a nuanced argument against a particular class of people and corporations. Meaning that the premise is flawed enough for most people to roll their eyes and ignore it.

The whole “rent is theft!” trope doesn’t even make sense from a political messaging viewpoint. What’s your suggested alternative? That’s not apparent at all. So this ends up sounding like saying “I want hot spaghetti for dinner!” and just expecting it to happen.

Also, a rather large number of people have rented something out, rented a room out, etc. thanks to AirBnB that this messaging makes enemies out of a whole lot of normal people by using absolute terms. People like me ask “Did my friends that helped me out steal from me? Of course not.”

If you think that anyone who thinks a reasonable exchange of a service for an agreed up on fee are committing theft, then you’ve alienated 98% of people with the premise alone by calling them criminals.

Change the VPN server/location.

That’s why VPNs give you hundreds of options. You should be changing your VPN location anyway based on the pseudo-profile you want. VPNs aren’t magic, they’re just tools.

Other options include:

Searching for the video with DDG or Startpage and playing the video via their search

Using an Invidious frontend