Ann: Morgans Mid-Cap Afternoon Presentation, page-22

If you want to see how buybacks can be disastrous for common shareholders then look no further than Meta. The whole time Zuckerburg was offloading his stock by the $Billions, the company, instead of acquiring, innovating or expanding, was buying back the stock effectively propping up the SP while he exited the collapsing bag. (A borderline criminal act IMO).

This is why buybacks used to be illegal and considered a form of insider trading. So the result is, this year alone, Meta has fallen from $340 to $90. The buybacks merely allowed the insiders to exit gracefully with much of their profits intact. A dividend would have had to have been shared with everyone and that's not in the Zuck's playbook.