Animations have a useful role - they provide often necessary visual cues on the context. For example, randomly jumping in a text page won’t tell you where you are now in relation to the previous position. Scrolling through does.
That's what scrollbars used to be good at, before they were dumbed down for dubious aesthetic reasons.
On Gnome, when I switch left/right between virtual workspaces, the animation provides some indication of the switch.
When I tried xfce, there was no animation, it didn't feel like an improvement.
Perhaps this is down to preferences.
Yet "smooth scrolling" is latency, and to most who are already used to scrolling, it is extremely unpleasant.
When one does scroll (i.e. move the viewport of a larger screen that's being presented through the inside of a window), it is because one wishes to already be seeing the target position.
Any latency through added animation destroys the illusion.
I quickly close any webpage that forces that strong discomfort upon me. And switch away from any application that does it against my wishes.