As another user pointed out, this is entirely based on the duration of the overload. If the overload is short, then queues absolutely do help smooth this over f

As another user pointed out, this is entirely based on the duration of the overload. If the overload is short, then queues absolutely do help smooth this over for the user. If demand is consistently exceeding capacity, the system will fail regardless which method is used to compensate (queues, shedding, back pressure, etc). Saying that a queues as a whole serve no purpose in an overload is only considering the catastrophic scenario, there is a lot more types of overloads that can happen depending on the system.