People seemed to be brainwashed into thinking that meetings are ... actually necessary. If people can build the Linux kernel without meetings, solely over email, then your $1.99 app, or your project requiring coordinating more than two people can be done the same way. Write it down, debate and argue in text so anyone interested can see what's going on. There's your minutes, your agenda, your invite for future ones right there. Now go back to work (or continue, since you didn't have to leave it in the first place) and stop bothering people.

I would praise any leader that has the courage to call the meeting spade a spade knowing they're just corporate-sanctioned babysitting exercises, myth to be discarded.

The Linux kernel isn't a business. There's no 2025 revenue numbers they're hoping to hit with some cool new initiative, no high-paying customer threatening to run away to Windows if they don't get suchandsuch new kernel feature by end of quarter. It's a very different problem space, and these kind of business alignment problems are exactly the ones that are harder to resolve through email.