I would argue it makes sense in that it creates an incentive to make the product good and durable. If you pay a one time fee and the product is just not great

I would argue it makes sense in that it creates an incentive to make the product good and durable. If you pay a one time fee and the product is just not great quality but does technically work, well you're stuck with it until you buy a new one. If you only pay when you buy something new, the seller has an incentive to make the object not last long because then you'll need to buy a new one. If you keep paying to rent it, they lose money every time they need to give you a new one because the old one breaks. About the car lease, you're missing the point that you don't pay taxes on the amount of car you're not buying either. It's also offering you a service : you don't have to bother trying to sell the car yourself. Also I would argue the biggest point is a ton of people live paycheck to paycheck and a small fee every month is a lot easier to do for them than a huge amount of money now.