I still don't fully grasp share buybacks and the intrinsic purpose of owning stock.

Okay. So I've been active in monitoring the stock market and learning about investing on and off for about the past 6 years.

But while I was pondering, I got stuck on the actual benefit of being a shareholder in the first place.

Yes I know owning stock means you own part of the company, but what does that actually mean? Well it means you have a claim on the company's earnings. The company has to use those earnings in the best interest of the shareholder either via retained earnings, dividends, or buybacks. Okay.

But retained earnings only seem to have value if it eventually results in buybacks or dividends.

And ideally you would want a level of dividends that will eventually cover the cost of your purchase, right? Like a landlord wants a tenant's rent to cover the cost of the mortgage. But it doesn't seem like this is a common philosophy (focusing on Yield on Cost) among investors, and I don't understand why.

Yes, there are capital gains, but I don't understand why someone is willing to pay more for a share of a business that has grown, when they still won't be receiving significant cash flows from being a business owner. To me this is like paying more for a house you don't plan on living in and that you also don't plan on ever renting out to someone and no one who buys it from you has a way of generating cash from the house either. What would be the point?

What is the point of being a business owner if you or someone you plan on selling to won't get cash flow from the business?

To me the concept of capital gains only makes sense when the asset getting the gains actually has value that can be extracted before it's sold, like a car, house, materials, technology, etc. So I don't understand how it makes sense that so much of investing centers around capital gains, without considering the actual benefit of remaining an owner and not selling.

And then there's buybacks, which still don't make a ton of sense to me no matter how much I read up on the subject. Yes your ownership increases after buybacks. Yes you can sell some of your stock to get your own synthetic dividend. But if I don't sell my stock, I guess I'm just hoping that when I plan on selling in the future, that the company will be willing to buy my stock? Otherwise, I don't see how I can count on the market to give me a price similar to what the company would give me during buybacks.

And I could see the power of buybacks if a company did noticeable dividends, since you'd then be entitled to dividends. But not all companies follow this logic when doing buybacks.

And yes, shares have voting power, but not always, depending on share structure and inside ownership.

Yes, if the company liquidates technically I have a residual claim, but most of the time, in bankruptcy, common shareholders get nothing. And yes, if the company was acquired, I would be compensated relative to the share price, but the companies that make up the bulk weight of most folks' portfolio (NVDA, GOOG, AAPL) have no prospects of being acquired.

Every time I've looked for an answer to these questions I've gotten a response hardly different from what I've written above.

Feel free to direct me to videos or literature that I should be reading.