This is unfortunately a fallacy. Those paying rent don’t have nothing to show for it — they pay for a roof over their head. So do you with your mortgage. At the end of your mortgage term, yes, you have an asset that those paying rent don’t, but you also had to drop a large sum of money upfront that they didn’t. Theoretically they were able to invest that money you paid into other assets that may or may not have appreciated more over that same period of time. Additionally, renters are often much more able to move should their living circumstances change.

At the end, you both pay for shelter for a period of time. And yes the argument is largely theoretical and vastly dependent on external factors, but it’s not true that owning is always better than renting.

(I say this all as a homeowner as well, FWIW).