Netflix isn’t raising money anymore. They are in publicly traded growth mode. If you want to own a slice of Netflix, you can buy it. No different than buying an interest in the ice cream shop up the road from you (if the current owner wants to part with a portion of the company in exchange for cash). You buy an interest in a company because you think the people that work for it do well and the opportunity for growth exists.

When a publicly traded company is finished growing and instead changes its strategy to simply making income - it starts paying dividends. For instance, General Mills, Pfizer, and Verizon are some examples. All of them are paying dividends equal to about 5-6% of their value. So if you think they’re good companies, you can make more interest on your money by purchasing shares of those companies whom pay nearly double what a high interest bank account does (with added risk!)

People who invest in that type of business do I purely with speculative intentions.

I mean, in my income based stock example - sure they’re speculating that the company won’t die, but they aren’t speculating on massive growth. Just steady income.

I would argue that many speculate buy simply holding USD vs Gold - you assume the United States won’t default on debt or make money printer go crazy, devaluing your investment in the “good faith” of the us govt.