Dividends as a concept are excellent, because they allow generating income on an appreciating asset. But I've seen exactly none that beats the S&P 500 on a long timescale, even with dividends reinvested.

Totally depends on your use case. If you want regular passive income from your investment, it's much simpler to get dividends then to regularly sell small amounts of it.

> Dividends allow you to obtain money from the business without giving up control.

Nonsense. The business can choose to issue new shares whenever it pleases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follow-on_offering

> How much tax do you pay on dividends compared to realised gains on stocks? These two are rarely the same and sometimes a dividend is taxed preferably.

If it's stock held for more than a year, it's the same. If it's 2-12 months, dividends get better tax treatment. If it's less than 2 months, it's the same.

For the vast majority of people and investment out there on an individual level, they're the same.

If you believe that your dividend is just being subtracted from the value of the company you invested in then it is equivalent to selling a small proportion of a non dividend paying stock every month/quarter/year as you prefer.

I think the point is that, in theory at least, the price would have been higher at the point of value recovery by the dividend amount.

Of course, it’s never exactly that simple in practice, as there are many other factors affecting share price. But there’s a point in dividend payout being referred to as forced fractional share sale.

Dividend companies don't have anything better to do with their profits than pay them back to investors. Sure, many successful companies will end up there at some point. But there's not much correlation with that and an investment that's good starting today.

Dividends are basically a last resort for boards. They are what you do with the money when you can't find a more productive use for it. Companies that aren't paying dividend are re-investing revenue in future growth.