I think the practice was found to be corrosive to societies and thus at one point or another many of them tried to ban it. (Lending is also very helpful for commerce, so most societies also reintroduced it. Actual practice varied at different points in history.)
Muslims have got around the problem of not being able to pay for houses in cash by constructing a joint ownership scheme, where the lender and buyer enter into a joint ownership of the house; the buyer pays rent and adds extra to buy more equity, and the rent goes to both the buyer and lender in proportion to their equity as a business partnership. Over time, the rent part decreases and the equity buying accelerates. There are other models, but this is the most popular one. Due to Federal and state laws, such mortgages are often reported with interest rates even though, technically, interest is not being charged.