Please. It's not a privilege to run Ethernet any more than having Internet and a laptop is a privilege. A spool is like $100, and you don't need to drill gigantic holes and run 60 wires back to a central drop to a 10 gig switch. I have run Ethernet cables in all my rentals (even when I was working minimum wage), usually only need 1 or 2 at the most. It's not rocket science either. You can go around the outside of your house, just like how a cable TV or phone installer will do it.
Landlords never notice or care. Just don't make it look shitty, they will just think it's a phone jack anyways.
So, your argument is that you casually violated your rental agreements? And you don't see how that reeks of entitlement? It might play well to this particular audience, but people who are less technical and less libertarian than the average HNer might find it less convincing.
idk, man, I rented for 15 years and just used thumb tacks to hold the cable in the corner of the ceiling, wall, floor/wall to push them around to where I needed to be. The hole that levees is quit difficult to see, you just pull the pins and coil the cable and walk away. Renters have been doing stuff like that with cable before internet too. Living in an apartment means you probably can't/don't want to run cables in the walls for someone else, but people have been running cables around apartments for years because you just have to do your thing.
I still find wired Ethernet to be a better experience all around though I do have a pretty decent wireless setup and I do roam quite a bit as well.
He didn't say he violated rental agreements, in fact he explicitly said the landlord doesn't care. It seems it's you who has a chip on your shoulder about HN that you have to cram entitlement into the situation.
You say chip on the shoulder. I say low tolerance for entirely predictable BS.
When I was poorer, even the "minor" cost of cables would have meant even more missed meals. (Fortunately that wasn't an issue because residential internet wasn't a thing back then, but you get the idea.) Losing a security deposit would have been an absolute disaster. I went to court twice to avoid exactly that, and could well have ended up homeless had I not prevailed. Not every landlord is forgiving, and not everyone has the option to prioritize freedom to make modifications over things like location, price, square footage, etc. Being able to shrug off costs and risks that loom larger for others is practically the definition of privilege.
Even among the more affluent, not everyone would put up with visible wires in every room and on every side of the exterior, or with the effort/expense of "doing it right" by fishing through walls with multiple obstructions. They might well prefer the tradeoffs represented by wireless, even if it's not perfect. Do you use landline phones because you never have to worry about being in a dead zone? Different people, different choices. That's all I'm saying, but somehow people who can't conceptualize that other people aren't exactly like them think that any choice other than their own deserves an inquisition.
I you're really paranoid you can use that fancy 3M tape that pulls off cleanly to install some clean cord covers[0] wherever you want. Most come with their own adhesive, that might leave some marks, but it'll come off with a slight scrub.
When you move, just remove them and install them in the next place - or have a chat with your landlord and leave them for the next tenant.
Landlords never notice or care. Just don't make it look shitty, they will just think it's a phone jack anyways.