Why would anyone invest in a market that doesn't resolve?

Because they believe the market will converge to the truth. (the hard part)

As the state of the world changes, so does the truth of this market.

If you anticipate the changes, you can buy low, sell high and earn a profit.

Why would anyone buy stock in a company that is never liquidated?

@ijk1 Expectation of future dividend payments and/or share buybacks.

My answer would be "they expect the stock to go up". Various major tech companies went decades without either dividends or buybacks; most people who made money off them did so purely from appreciation. Market cap = estimated discounted future cash flows * vibe factor

@ijk1 Even buybacks only help indirectly in that they drive the price up. Selling the stock with a profit is the real deal

@ijk1 Without either of the two, the future expected cash flow is zero, though, and they effectively become collectibles that people hold just because they like owning them, or because they hope a bigger fool will take them off their hands for more than they paid in the future.

The market for collectibles is not zero (see also: meme stocks), but it's probably much smaller than that for expected future cash flows.

@lxgr Something will happen at some point. The company might get acquired for example. You are buying a share in something that has actual, tangible value in the real world. Just IP and physical goods like factories alone put those above meme stock or collectibles

@Enlil Benefiting as a shareholder from IP or physical goods would require liquidation though, and we're talking about things besides that per @ijk1's original comment :)

But true, an acquisition with shareholders paid out in cash is an option too that I forgot to mention, as that would usually hopefully yield more than just the liquidation value.

Someone should really dump a billion dollars of liquidity into this.