I believe what we're witnessing here is a battle between the fashions of a time gone by overlapping with the fashions (and expectations) of a newer generation g

I believe what we're witnessing here is a battle between the fashions of a time gone by overlapping with the fashions (and expectations) of a newer generation growing up with "asynchronous everything" There was a time when you were paid to "be present" physically. ie, fill the seat in a room where discussions happened, however meaningful (or not) your contribution to the matter at hand. Time and technology changed and productivity of an individual, especially in CS disciplines far out grew expectations of organizational structure. This is opinion only, but in this day and age, having meetings where there are a LOT of people talking and you're not an active participant seems to me an indication of skewed expectations of presence. You don't need to have your camera on all the time if your contribution to the meeting is simply saying nothing or even saying a few lines in the middle of an hour long discussion. Maybe we need to stop thinking that "Virtual meetings" are simply digital manifestations of what people used to do in real life. The world has changed significantly and we are still doing what people did decades ago, only in newer ways and calling it progress. People "online" have vastly different presence than ones stuck in a physical room and can multi task . . walk in a park, do the dishes, play a video game on the couch and still participate constructively if the requirement is simple passive participation in a discussion (Which most meetings today seem to be) I'd say we need a deeper probe into these thieves of productive time where people simply fill calendars with blocks of time or send of hundreds of emails a month with very little progress to show for it and dig into how we optimize that for all of humanities benefit.