However I agree that the extent of it is the key. I think most people actually hate running meetings (it's basically public speaking), but they hate writing documents even more. It's much easier to "voice over" something than to sit and write it out. It's also easier to enforce attendance than to police opening and actually reading documents. So meetings are the path of least resistance/effort.
Now you're right it's obviously not that black and white, I'm generalizing. But I think devs often under-estimate how many people in a typical company perceive meeting other internal employees as amongst their primary outputs, as an end in and of itself, not just a means.
A good way to observe this in action is to try and enforce a rule that meetings must have pre-published agendas. Good luck with that! People will just work around it or write useless non-agendas because often a meeting is not to get something specific done, but is used more like a sort of coffee break to split up the day and give people something to look forward to between desk time.
Something else worth remarking on - a lot of people in sales or marketing roles never seem to use word processors. They communicate ideas by sending PowerPoint decks around, often with a density of words in the slides too high to actually project (only readable on hi-dpi screens). Where I last worked there were people whose working hours boiled down to meetings and PowerPoints. They could spend a whole week making a deck, which would only be seen by their colleagues in a meeting. I found it odd but maybe the slide templates help them structure their thoughts.
Interesting - I actually chalk up that to two things: first, people in SWE roles having historically been given a tremendous amount of latitude for behavior that does not conform to "professional" norms. The freedom to dress however they want, work from home, and skip out on meetings they don't want to attend are all of a piece. And second, I think software engineering work is often (generalizing as well) less cross functional than other roles. Gathering requirements and understanding how it fits into a larger company plan is usually tasked out to PMs or tech leads, which is not something I've seen for Finance, HR, Legal, or other functional roles. So the need to schedule their own meetings is also lessened.
I've also noticed the PowerPoint issue: densely packed slides look ridiculous and don't project well. I think a lot of people wind up simply reading off the slides.
for me this is the real failure and design documentation being shitty is just a symptom
group design is a really important skill, and people don't even recognize that its a thing
True, people are bad at both but I think many people view a 30 minute meeting where they can voice over an idea as a lower lift than sitting down and writing a well structured doc (see also: Loom). Plus, it's easier to enforce attendance than to enforce reading a document. So meetings are the path of least resistance.
