Meetings that become habitual rather than useful are the worst and daily stand ups, at least for me, are the bane of my life.

What value they did have has been eroded by them being scheduled too often, no-one has anything new to talk about, and therefore they've all become an exercise in endurance and tedium.

You absolutely hit the nail on the head with being asked to turn on your camera during larger meetings - all for the purpose of 'engagement'.

Of course it's nonsense... HR just want to see you're awake and not doing the ironing, others want to voyeuristically spy on you (something at least in person meetings prevent), but most of all it's just extending the workplace surveillance that we all used to put up with in the office.