How do we make remote meetings not suck? (2018)

By comparison large headcount meetings are gross sadistic and pointless in person regardless of communications format selected. Either they're intended to let a small number of individuals convey information to a larger group (send a goddamn email already, if you're really fancy video your canned remarks and send a link to the video in the email), or they're intended to elicit some kind of exchange among a large group, at which point you end up with an hour and a half of nothing of substance being accomplished while some/most/all of the meeting participants are sitting there fighting their soul's urge to simply vacate their body on the spot. Then there's the ever-popular multi-departmental standup meeting, in which a bunch of people convey pointless detail at length about shit that is wildly irrelevant to the jobs of most of the other attendees to no obvious purpose.

Full Disclosure: I intentionally ignore my email under the assumption that if it's really important someone will pick up a phone and call.

If someone really doesn't want to work, I think from the employer's perspective it doesn't make a difference. We could argue physical and mental inconveniences could be seen the same. I guess there will be places were there's a legal split between the two kinds, but I kinda wish there wasn't.

(I'm assuming there's a finite number of days either way)

This can be coupled with Edward Tufte's suggestions on how to present at a meeting. To summarize, he says that there is no point sending a presentation in advance .. most will not read it anyway. Instead of a presentation, write about 5-6 six pages of prose and hand them out at the beginning of the meeting. Every one will scan the document in their own ways and write up questions. After 20 minutes or so, start discussing the document. This way, the presenter doesn't have to drone on about things that everyone knows, and one can focus on real questions.

https://www.edwardtufte.com/files/Consume_Produce_14_15.pdf

In the past was common having meetings in a physical room, because the office was a needed tool due to paper-based workflows, and since attending demand certain time not only to meet but also to prepare the meeting, going to the right place and so on they was organized in certain formats. Things are, or should and must be different, but most fails to understand how to use new tools properly.

In the modern connected world attending a meeting is damn cheap, but we also have other tools to collaborate and depending on the task such other tools are better. Having searchable text trails, developing certain topics slowly a message at a time, having few "spontaneous" meetings between only few, than openly discussing something often is much better. But you should know modern tools and all must use them seriously.