Re #1, many video conferencing apps have in-app captions and I really appreciate turning these on. Sometimes I can't understand the speaker and captions save me. Sometimes I space out and captions allow me to "rewind" conversations so I can answer an unexpected question.

Even if your video conferencing apps doesn't have captions, your OS might (Mac does, for example). Not as good as one in the conferencing software (which can label speakers), but it's better than nothing.

This feature also helps if you join a meeting and don't have your audio set up right.