Let’s say your three months in on a new rental home. Landlord may be averages $100-$200 per month profit, so reasonably they’ve only collected $600 in total profit from you. AC now breaks and needs a $10,000 replacement. Who pays? Have they collected enough money from you so that you are paying for it?
This only seems to not make sense if you assume that the landlord hasn’t rented the property in the past and won’t continue to rent it in the future, and also that you assume that revenue is the same as profit, which it fundamentally is not. If they’re only making $100-$200 in profit how do you account for the rest of the money that’s paid in rent? There’s no way they’re renting me a house with central air for only $100-$200/mo, is the rest of the money I pay in rent maybe, and hear me out here, going to cover expenses like a new AC unit?
you might as well start arguing that every business ever pays for things because of money, they’ve collected in their patrons.
I’m arguing exactly that, that every business pays for things with or in anticipation of revenue. It’s built into the idea of seeking profit. I’m a W2 employee and the business that employs me pays me with revenue they bring in and in anticipation of being able to use my work to bring in more revenue than they pay me. It’s kinda fundamental to the rationally self-interested profit motive that’s supposed to drive this whole economic system.