I don't care so much about paying rent. What I care about is what happened to me, back in 2020. During the pandemic, the wealthy fled Manhattan and created a buying frenzy in Upstate NY, where I live. My landlady decided it was in her interest to cash in on that; and, so, when the whole world was being turned upside down, I got the news that I would have to look for another place to live. I bought a condo solely for the control it offered me. As far as I'm concerned, nobody gets to do that to me again.

It's usually a trade off between paying someone for rent, or paying someone else interest (and others for tax, maintenance, etc.)

You can't really take the investment aspect or any of these others out of the analysis if you want to understand what's best for you. Particularly in countries with policies to encourage/subsidize home ownership the answer is often, "buy a place", but not always.

Interest is tax deductible, and if you have an investment property you can write off a lot of things.

No tax benefits go to renters. That's one of many considerations here other than raw liabilities.

This all depends on jurisdiction of course.

Agree a investment property is a whole other can of worms, but not really relevant on the "should I buy or rent, personally" decision. For that one, you need to compare to other investments, which is in many ways more straightforward.