Another plus for me personally is that it has a focusing effect on myself as a developer - if I say I'm going to get something done in standup, I'm going to force myself to focus on that task, and not get distracted by something else unless it's really important. I can see how that's a totally personal thing though - I need to have some sort of external "deadline", even if it's self-imposed and soft, to keep me focused.
All of the above can be solved with async updates in Slack though, and that's probably actually a better medium. Having folks get in the same room seems a little pointless to me, especially when you have remote folks and timezones are an issue.
I've been in environments like the one you describe, and I think at the end of the day it's more of a cultural issue than something that can be solved using a tool.
My hunch is that standups are pretty useless
on teams where each developer is working on
an independent change where there isn't much
opportunity to get blocked by teammates aside
from waiting for code reviews and the like
I could (and do) read their commits and PRs, and standups are not a replacement for that, but I think you can usually get a better idea just by chatting for a few minutes each day.
I view the cost of a daily standup as very small (they should be only a few minutes long!) so while some would call the benefits modest, I think the "time spent vs. value obtained" ratio is still very good.
I too like knowing what my teammates are working on, but I already get that from the team's Slack channel where people talk about what they're doing as they do it.
Of course, that's my experience. Others may have had different experiences and I respect that. If you formerly had 0 interruptions per day and now you have 1 interruption per day, that would be frustrating. I would also like to work where you work!
My problem with a morning standup is that it completely destroys my productivity if I come in early and really get cracking on a problem, then have to stop and task-switch. I'd much rather make it optionally asynchronous.
I personally would rather do those meetings in the early afternoon, like before or after lunchtime.
Pretty sure there are plenty of studies that show early afternoon is our least productive time anyway.
(TBH, and I'm being completely serious here, my ideal schedule would also involve siesta time in the early afternoon)
My hunch is that standups are pretty useless on teams where each developer is working on an independent change where there isn't much opportunity to get blocked by teammates aside from waiting for code reviews and the like. That's most of the teams I've worked on, and the standups inevitably turn into a verbal form of, "Hey manager, here's my status report for the day even though you already know all this because I've already said it in Slack," because you have nothing to ask of the other people on the team but you're required to say something every day.