That’s not quite accurate. A company is ultimately controlled by it’s owners who may prefer dividends. One possible example is maintaining the current ownership structure while providing an income. Think someone owning 51% and wishing to maintain control.

> A company is ultimately controlled by it’s owners who may prefer dividends.

If the reason they "prefer" dividends is not because they evaluated the alternatives and decided that the risk-return profile was favorable (for the company, not for themselves in particular)), then they are acting against the interests of the minority shareholders. That may carry legal consequences or not, depending on your jurisdiction. In my country (Brazil), there are laws protecting the interests of minority shareholders. If you have 51% of a company that is listed on the stock exchange, you have significant but not unlimited power.

Also, maybe the company sees it as a risk that, in reducing the dividend, it may suffer in the short term due to the outflux of shareholders who see it as a dividend play. In that case, the risk-return profile of paying zero dividends is not favorable.

In practice protection for majority shareholders does not extend to a preference of dividends over investments in any jurisdiction. All investments carry risks, dividends don’t so the only legal justification required is to select a low risk threshold. Such protections are designed to avoid selling off assets at below market rates to majority shareholders and other such clearly suboptimal choices.