alt Hacker NewsMeetings can be work, but often they are a waste of time. Often they are only done, because the company has not found a better way to structure itself, which is also accepted by the management lawyer, who often has a profound fear of loss of control and likes to micromanage. If you can zone out for most of the meeting, and not experience negative effects from that, then the meeting was a waste of your time.
it's not a waste of your time if you're getting paid for it, that's why you are there. You're not there to be otherwise "productive" you're there to do what the company wants you to do. you might say they're inefficient, but are things like company outings efficient? b.s. townhall calls? half the time it's just managers trying to hear their own voice in front of everyone. You're not there to write code or fix things, you're there to make those pay-check signers happy. placate to their ego if that's what they want.
That said, often, meetings are much more efficient means of syncing information than slack/chat or emails. call it "real-time active communication with rich context" if it sounds more technical. you can communicate in voice tones, body language, timing,etc.. what you can't using other means. and communicate doesn't mean just talk or listen for the sake of it, it can me brainstorm, understand requirements and expectations better, prevent misunderstandings and other wasted effort.
In my experience, things that exist as patterns like this in systems are always important, but it's also important to use them as intended, and not abuse them excessively.
Simply extracting the most value out of individual contributors isn't typically the goal of white collar management. as in my earlier example, you won't see order pickers at amazon warehouses attend meetings all day. their time at work is valued differently than a white collar workers'.