The fact that some meetings add value doesn't mean all or even most meetings add value.
My analogy holds; page fault handlers add value. They also incur a heavy cost and you want to avoid faulting if it at all possible.
I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience with meetings; it must be common or the stereotype wouldn't exist. My workplace is different. Since my most valuable work is accomplished in meetings, I wish I could be in meetings all of the time. The only reason I can't is because we frequently need long breaks to implement the work we did in the meetings. In fact, coding is a much heavier cost than meetings; unnecessary coding is much worse than unnecessary meetings and you want to avoid unnecessary coding at all costs (even though it's usually still quite fun). Just because you develop software doesn't mean you should spend as much time as possible writing code. Just because you produce code at work doesn't mean you're only working when you're coding.
This is where we disagree. Talking about work isn't tangible work. Talking unblocks work, to a point.
> I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience with meetings; it must be common or the stereotype wouldn't exist.
Given that my experience spans roughly 15 years, major corporations, small and large startups, in both management (director, VP, and C-level roles) and engineering (software, systems) I'm inclined to trust my experience that meetings are generally a work-substitution mechanism and a means of furthering political/social career advancement, and bad PMs (which is, sadly, most of them) are the worst offenders of them all.