A CIO once told me with Agile we didn’t need requirements. He thought my suggestion to document the current system before modifying was a complete waste of time. Instead he made all the developers go through a customer service workshop, how to handle and communicate with customers. Cough cough… most developers do not talk with customers. Instead where we worked developers took orders from product and project people whose titles changed every year but they operated with the mindset of a drill sergeant. My way or the highway.

Business developers need to occasionally talk directly to customers. It's fine to filter most requirements through Product Managers / Product Owners. But developers who never communicate directly with customers and end users get disconnected from reality and end up acting based on mythology rather than ground truth.

The developers were not given the choice. They are literally mushrooms. No requirements. No interaction with customers. They took orders from product/ project people.