The problem is deeper than that. Software has completely eroded property rights. I believe someone has coined the term "techno feudalism". Corporations own the software and us serfs merely lease it.
I think that's reversed - that's property rights being stronger than ever. "Own things forever and just rent them out" is NOT a weak formulation of property rights from the point of view of the producers of those things.
There's not an inherent privilege of purchasing over renting in property rights. In either case you're paying for something, it's just a different slice of that something. They're different transactions that can benefit the different parties different ways in different situations. But if technological development lets the owner get the financial rewards of selling through "licensing" that's hardly a reduction in the owner's rights - and it's hard to make a "pro-strong-property-rights" argument that's based in "people should be forced to sell on the buyer's terms, not their own."
I don't think there's anything inherently right about renting or owning.
Rather, it's one of the things we need to learn about and decide which is better for our societies.
Right now, we are far into testing the "renting" side, especially when it comes to housing and software, and it's very clear that, at least as currently implemented, this is creating an unhealthy society with massive wealth inequality.
I don't have an answer to this, but the only people I see arguing for the status quo are the very few who have benefited from it - landlords, politicians, company execs etc. Or at least people who aspire to join those classes.
If you do find yourself arguing for it, please ask yourself whether you're doing it for selfish reasons rather than looking beyond yourself.
Maybe it proves your point that I'm technically a landlord now, but only to help out a neighbour so they could stay in the area for cheap, because they needed to downsize, approached me and we agreed on a very low price. I wasn't initially planning on renting it out because it needed some upfront work to be liveable, which might be even more selfish considering the housing shortage where i live...
Fundamentally that's the question. Do we want a society from the perspective of "the producers" or the greater population?
Not trying to put words in OP's mouth, but I think the general idea is that software has allowed "the producers" to shrink in number and grow in power, turning independent farmers into serfs if you will. Should that cause us to reevaluate the previous question?
Look at what the right wing US party always runs on - cutting taxes for "job creators", "running the government like a business", and bail outs for Wall Street.
At least half of this country fantasies about being at the beck and call of "the producers" of things. Fanboys of Elon Musk squeal if he interacts with them on Twitter.
Bruce Schneier, for one, not sure if anyone else had applied the feudal analogy before him. His remarks stand up quite well, I think:
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2012/11/when_it_com...
We were way more worried about that before GNU/Linux became a thing.
What piece of software do you need for your life, but you're forced to lease?
If I own a piece of land, I can charge people to visit it, but I don't give up my property rights to do so. We don't see that as an "erosion" of property rights but rather the opposite.
This is a great topic to discuss right after you accept the End-User License Agreement and Terms of Service.