A responsible landlord is “doing” arrangements for property maintenance and handling all tax and other legal requirements, and my hard feelings are towards slumlords who let dwellings become unsafe, or property flippers who kick all the renters out and build new dwellings to sell to more wealthy buyers.
But also, isn’t the hate for landlords equally applicable to banks and other financial institutions that hold mortgages? They really are earning money by no other responsibility than having the capital available at the start.
It would require a lot of housing density for everyone to own four dwellings (and would kill rent demand well and good), but I wouldn’t call it infeasible. For everyone to have a quarter acre lawn and a 2,000 square foot house that shares no walls with neighbors? With those additional requirements having everyone own four is infeasible, sure, but a belief that’s the only dwelling worth owning is how we have throttled our housing supply in the first place.