Comment by dzonga
share buybacks are sort of a voting mechanism - it shows the company has no other uses for the money than to reward shareholders - hence pumping stock price up.
if the company has a vision - then reinvesting that money into research or what else is better. it might reap the benefits, it might not.
companies use buybacks if they can't do anything productive with the money - Apple is a recent example.
And before buybacks they used distributions, which have always been allowed, so there has been no change there.