I've been using gmail since the early beta days and was never aware of this functionality. But on closer inspection there appears to be a highly stylized (unrecognizable) camera icon there that takes me to, I guess the long lost cousin of Google Meet?? Why are these apps welded together? What a bizarre decision. I thought Meet went to The Graveyard along with Allo and Duo and Wave.

That's something that I would (very generously) expect to add 5 megabytes.

Yeah, meet and chat (where each has their own bloat) are now integrated into the mail app as well. This contributes a lot.