I think the two of you are thinking/talking about two different things.

In most workplaces before ~2020 individual teams had designated desks/islands - all team members were sitting next to each other, actually every individual had their own permanent desk.

And you could have a quick chat, pair program, and even adhoc whole team meeting by just removing your noise-cancelling headphones and talking to each other.

Though of course bigger/longer meetings would still be better in a meeting room because of big screen, not being nuisance to other people ...etc.

Most workplaces now do some variant of flexi-desks. At best a group of teams is allocated some specific area/desks, at worst it's completely random which desk you get.

And to have a chat/meeting you often need to still do it via conference call, or get into a meeting room.

Between that, and usually having some people from the team still WFH on that day (many workplaces don't even have enough work desks or cafeteria - for everyone to come into office on the same day) - you now need more meeting rooms than before.

And for some reason they didn't add more meeting rooms, even when redesigning office buildings.