What a link actually proves, and what it doesn't
Waiting room admission holds a participant in a separate, pre-join state until the meeting's host explicitly approves them, rather than admitting anyone who arrives with a valid meeting link straight into the call. This closes a specific gap that link-based access alone leaves open: a link can be forwarded, guessed, or accidentally shared far more widely than the host ever intended, and holding a valid link only proves someone knows the link — it says nothing about whether the host actually wants that specific person present in this particular meeting.
This mirrors the same underlying idea a revocable, checked-at-use-time share link applies elsewhere, adapted to real-time admission specifically: the link alone isn't the final authorization decision, a live check by the party with actual standing to make that call is.
The friction is what makes it protective
The tradeoff is exactly the friction that makes waiting-room admission meaningful in the first place: someone has to actually be watching and approving arrivals for the gate to do anything at all, which doesn't scale painlessly to large, high-turnover meetings the way an unattended link does. For a small, sensitive meeting, that friction is a feature worth its cost; for a large open webinar, it may not be worth applying at all — the pattern earns its place specifically where who's actually present matters enough to justify someone watching the door.