I don't disagree that standups and 1on1s are often empty, but the point is to have a planned point of contact. Think of it more like regular maintenance of the social machine. It helps you not succumb to really preventable issues. They provide an obvious scheduled point to raise issues that do come up, without them people often bottle stuff up until the failure point is hit.

There is value too in scheduling a 1on1 that is easy to cancel. It's easy enough to quickly check if it's necessary, if it isn't, no worries.