[reitzensteinm]

You're right about that. I didn't consider people buying and holding expecting zero real returns, vs eg T-Bills which might offer negative.

But my point was that you'd be merely matching an offer that they'd already implicitly turned down because they expect a better offer later - sell their share of the company at the current market cap.

That can include capital preservation, e.g. maybe you'd rather have exactly 100% of your portfolio value in real terms in 20 years than 100% now, since you believe the market will go down.