I'm not disputing that conferencea could be fun, there are lots of fun things in the world. I was just wondering what they were actually useful for.
Sometimes you go to tech talk that you would never watch at home because you "have other stuff to do", just because is between two other interesting talks... and it often happens that also that one is awesome and you are glad you didn't miss it at the end of the day.
Typically, conferences are for professional development. Here's how a conference is superior to me clicking my way to professional development.
1. I'm not distracted by the demands of my day job. When I go to a conference I leave my day to day concerns behind. I can completely focus on learning and networking.
2. The biggest benefit for a conference for me personally is that I'm inspired by speakers, by what they're doing and working on, and by what my fellow attendees are doing and working on. This temporary reprieve from my day to day in #1 in conjunction with #2 has me itching to get back to my keyboard to code.
When I attempt to skip a conference and just watch the videos, I rarely watch them because of all the other things that are competing for my time and attention.