Sometimes I need / want to rent. Example, I had to repair the foundation of my home and needed a single family home to rent for my family while my home was being repaired for 6mo.
Hotels / motels / inns are a pretty reasonable use case. People need temporary housing for travel.
I don’t want to live in an area for more than 5 or 10 years, I want to rent. Buying a house is a huge fucking pain, and is always full of expensive surprises once you move and have the maintenance on you.
I could go on, but IMHO, there are a LOT more reasons why renting is actually useful, and I might want someone else to be on the hook for the mortgage and maintenance.