It’s a way to return money to share holders.
And shareholders only 'benefit' from this return if they sell their stock (ie give up being stock holders) versus the traditional method where stock holders receive and dividend and maintain their stock ownership. A dividend benefits all stock holdres, stock manipulation only benefits those that sell, a smaller arbitrary subset. Why chose a 'return' method that is only for some investors?
>Why chose a 'return' method that is only for some investors?
The investors control the company, so they get to decide that.