In a surprise move, Facebook parent Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) announced earlier this month that it was initiating a dividend. The move gives the tech company yet another way to return excess cash to shareholders. And as far as excess cash goes, it has tons of it. The social network specialist ended 2023 with $65 billion of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities on its balance sheet -- and that's after spending more than $20 billion repurchasing its stock during the year. It's able to do this because the company is a cash machine, generating $43 billion of free cash flow during the full year.

For Meta Platforms, initiating a dividend made perfect sense. And it makes sense for one more major tech company, too: Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL). Unlike Meta, however, the Google parent hasn't yet opted to initiate a dividend. But that doesn't mean it won't in the future.

Here are a few quick and simple reasons Alphabet should initiate a dividend.

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Source Fool.com