How is buying anonymized data from a third party (the same party that Lyft purchases data on Uber from) is screwing anybody over?

If you have rear wheel drive, engine braking will not drop the nose. Every sports biker I know will not touch the front brakes when they see a cop. Same principle.

You are missing the point. When you compare the costs of renting vs owning, lots of people simply compare rent vs mortgage amount. The rent number includes a certain amount of maintenance in it, but some maintenance (and a bazillion other things) needs to be added to the mortgage amount to compare apples to apples.

As far as I know, you can only deduct property tax if you are paying it as part of your lease agreement.