[riffraff]

Well, for one you can just nod along while other people speak, or shake your head. Video just increases the communication bandwidth a bit.

You can also quickly switch to screen sharing some chart and discuss it. Or you can look at a backlog, or some bit of code, or a mockup.

I've been remote for 12 years, in my experience video calls are strictly better than audio only, but of course it's fine if someone can't join with video.

It's not video that makes meetings bad, it's people.