> Outside of the fun aspect, the only actual use for ham radios I can think of is providing emergency communications, particularly during extreme weather events that affect the functioning of cell towers and such

Aside from the useful thing they provide, what useful thing do they provide?

We are only nine meals from anarchy. More modernly, we are only 4 technologies away from the Internet. Wired, wifi, cellular, satellite. If those get overwhelmed, which they easily do when stressed, we need to have fallbacks in place for communication. You're right that things are evolving add technology improves, but the hobby has also evolved. Morse code is no longer a requirement, for example.