All companies eventually die. Sometimes this can take hundreds of years, but all companies do eventually die. At that point, the stock is worth zero. So if all

All companies eventually die. Sometimes this can take hundreds of years, but all companies do eventually die. At that point, the stock is worth zero. So if all stock is eventually worth zero, why pay for any of it today? Well, you may want voting rights. But voting rights don't mean much unless you hold a lot of stock, and a lot of stock is non-voting anyway. That leaves dividends and exits. An exit depends on someone having a value for the company, and can almost be looked at as a 'final dividend'. So I would essentially boil the value of most stock down to purely dividends. If you buy it for any other reason, you are hoping that some other person will be willing to buy it from you later. Which means that other person needs a reason (voting power, dividends, or some other business move with external benefits). But my appraisal is that many stocks exist today that have value simply because people think that other people will want the stock. It's inefficient, and at the moment of exit (death also counts as exit here) someone is left holding a bunch of stock that's worth less than what they bought it for.