> If you have nothing to contribute to the meeting, and nothing you need to hear from the meeting, just don't go. Unless you're working for one of those companies who care about meeting attendance from uninvolved people (which companies are these so I can avoid them?), then nobody is going to notice or care that you're not there.

You've overlooked my prior point: I'm not given enough information (any, actually) to know this beforehand. I can assume, because it's very likely true, but then once or twice a month I'm missing from a meeting where my presence is actually useful.

In an idealized training video, that's the moment where my manager would ask, "Hey, I noticed you've missed some important meetings, is there anything I can do?" and I'd explain the situation.

In reality, at the start of the meeting they'll bug me 0 or more times until they give up (regardless of whether or not I'm needed at the meeting, because they probably don't know either), they'll never ask what's going on, and their mental model will slowly adjust to see me as more and more "unreliable and disinterested".