Maybe we can just skip the video part in videoconferencing and keep only the infinitesimally smaller audio of it all. Honestly I'm already sick of looking at a bunch of balding white dudes barely moving, it adds nothing.
In my personal experience, being able to see others' faces and eyes has been helpful during this time.
That said, many video conferencing tools I've used let you switch into an audio-only mode (and not downloading the others' video) if you prefer.
I do wonder if we could adapt deepfake tech to improve compression. A keyframe plus tracking of facial features could provide a very low bandwidth simulacrum of video calls.
No one is forcing you to download video you don't want.
If its a work meeting...then yes they are absolutely being forced to download video they don't want. They could possibly minimize the window, but then they lose out on key things like muting and screensharing. I'm not aware of any meeting software that lets you turn off the video of other participants (though you can usually do it for audio).
It is not needed very often.
It's not just for looking at "balding white dudes" (which itself is very insulting in its own right).