That's the whole point of a joint stock company. If capital is never returned to investors, why would they invest in the company in the first place?
Dividends were very common pre-1980. What makes you think they weren't?
> I think stock is supposed to be like gold, you invest in the value of gold.
The value of a stock comes from the possibility of capital return from the company. If the company never gives anything to shareholders, the value of a stock is no more than the paper it's printed on.
Dividends were often a very small piece of a companies expenses, just to incentivize long term holding of shares, not short term seeking of profits