Disclaimer; I know it would never happen but I am just curious about how and why the stock market has been chosen to work the way it does - this is just hypothetical.
Companies say they don't offer dividends or suspend the offer of dividends as a means to reinvest capital back into growing the company. This comes with the promise of a larger dividend in future (or a larger company valuation).
If you shuffle the numbers around, this appears to functionally be a loan with a low interest rate and skipping a few tax barriers; paid for by the shareholders.
This seems to disproportionately benefit larger companies as they have more profit they can work with.
Wouldn't it better encourage competition if all companies were required to provide dividends on their shares and if they needed capital their either raised it by selling shares or borrowed it from a lender?