I think the problem is that a large number of people got used to various trading accounts like ETrade, Robin Hood, etc. and that seeing "N shares of ABC" on a web site means that they actually own the shares. But this is just an abstraction like someone said in another comment. I would encourage you to go and read any brokerage's terms of service that you agreed to when you signed up. Or if you actually managed to get a paper stock, read the fine print. I promise you it will be very interesting :-)

I personally am aware that shares are a very limited form of ownership and gave my personal answers for why I accept that, but the meta-level question that was raised by krick earlier still stands, which is how everyone else in the world sees it and goes "yep, that's totally fair, we don't need to fix this."

speaking for myself, "fair" means they obey the contract, which gives them that ability

there is also the option of not letting people buy or sell stocks at all, which would resolve the same issues the mandatory sell provisions resolve

A healthy control premium over the market price for a publicly traded stock is a bit far and away from being "rugpulled"

Yes, and I think krick was asking what happens when something closer to a rugpull happens.

The SEC says no, or there is a shareholder lawsuit.

Publicly traded securities aren't the Wild West, and the real world has built up comparatively effective dispute resolution tooling like "courts," elected and appointed "judges," "regulators," and "prosecutors."

Not to mention "case law" and "precedence"