I feel that you missed one basic aspect of economics. Competition is one reason prices might go up. There are other reasons, which are relevant here. Monopolies, collusion, price fixing, goods that people can't live without, speculation, those are also reasons that prices go up.
In the housing market, it's not fair, it's not free, this isn't a basic supply and demand situation.
I think we agree, with the caveat that you need to be careful when stating a position like yours, because it's often used as an excuse to do nothing at all.
Is there anything specific to open source about this question? If you're a software developer, you might have to decide whether you want to work for a shady company, or whether you want your smaller company to contract with a larger shady company. Those are I think harder decisions to make, because it could be your job on the line.
In the open source world, at least you don't know for sure what people are going to do with your work.
But we do know that if a company is looking to be evil, it's probably going to find a way, whether or not it uses your library.
I don't think your definition of middle class is what most people use when they talk about it.
This is really obvious if you think about people remarking on the death of the middle class. They're not saying that the mean or the median doesn't exist. They are saying that families like the Simpsons are much less common than they used to be.
Flatpak is one extra step. If apt or rpm already has what you want, which is true for many new users, why would we push them towards scary click thru action?
Wait a second. You think that if large-scale landlords have to sell property, that will magically make it harder for other people to buy it? Now now. You can do better.
I'm down with anything. The point is that your rent is not high because Bob has two houses. It's because the real estate speculators own five thousand.
The sarcasm might have been lost on the author. One can never be too sure these days. :-)
What a terrible article. The solution is throwing more subsidies? Of course it's not! The solution is making it illegal to own more than a few properties. It really is that easy.
Oh my God oh my God if the landlords have to sell, that would be... Check notes... That would be really good for people who want to buy houses.
First, there is no "wrestling". The policy is clear. Second, the only way to fix declining population is to increase permanent residence, which means either a Permanent Residence Visa or citizenship. But it takes 10 years for Permanent Residence, and Japan bans dual citizenship. Work visas do not fix the problem. But work visas are popular because immigrants can be treated as slave labor.
In other words, the author of that article has done a small amount of research but is actually being far to generous to a xenophobic and racist government that's enabling the abuse of foreign laborers.
I was having trouble understanding what you meant because you didn't think about the obvious implications of millions of properties being unloaded in a short time.
If the number of landlords drastically increases, which would happen when you have mass property sales, then there's more competition, and rent goes down.
Or, depending on your setup, the government seizes some of the properties that people refuse to sell, and turns them into public housing. This also drives rent down.
So then, what happens? Oh yeah, both buyers and renters win. Was that clear enough? Perhaps I should write in all caps.