I am not the one who schedules these 1:1 meetings though. Manager is. Cardinal rule of meetings should be only schedule them if you have an achievable goal for them which is not better achieved with email or IM. And the goal can't be "talk about X".
I don't have a strong desire to push back against it. My schedule is not one that is full of meetings, and most of the ones I do have are interesting and enjoyable technical ones. And the manager is a nice person who means well and probably gets pressure from above to schedule them. And blabbering on for 30 minutes per week isn't terrible. It's just not at all productive or useful for me to be spending that long on a 1:1 as far as I can see.
For my team members, one of my reports started an agenda doc with the things they wanted to talk about allowing us to stay focused, I add things to the doc too and it works really well. When we have nothing on the agenda, we don't have the one on one. It worked so well, I now do it with all of my reports (and the peers and management types that I report to).
Don't get me wrong at all, he's a lovely person and means well. The 1:1 does not irritate me as such, my week is not loaded up with meetings. If that was different, I would gently try to change things. I also think he is getting pressure from above to meet various metrics like 1:1 time.
I just don't get much out of it that couldn't be replaced by a couple of minute slack or email once in a while when things come up. And I accept it might work well for others.