My honest opinion after 20 years in industry is in-office meetings and "collaboration" is mainly to cater to people who don't communicate very well. They have

My honest opinion after 20 years in industry is in-office meetings and "collaboration" is mainly to cater to people who don't communicate very well. They have low reading comprehension and/or patience, and they require a lot of repetition the same thing when in meetings. In person works a bit better for them with the extra body language and not having to hand off audio in online meetings.