You can mimic dividend payments even when an asset has only capital appreciation. Regularly sell small amounts of your assets (percentage equal to dividend yield that you want). The rest of the asset appreciates. So that way, you have 'money now' as well as potential gain (albeit lower than what you would get if you held the entire asset) in the future.
The downside is people lack the discipline to systematically sell. It is easier for them when the company gives regular dividends.
This would only work when the price increase is steady and constant. There is no investment that has a stable enough of a capital return investment for this to work. With a dividend payment you will receive funds regardless of where the price of the investment has gone recently, however with your strategy, you can only sell a small portion of your holdings when the price has appreciated recently.
It doesn't matter how the price increases/decreases. You can implement this strategy (ie sell 2 or 3% of the asset) irrespective of price movements. You can have price decreases even in the case of a dividend paying stock, can't you? In a falling price environment, this strategy would resemble that.