For me objects capture some notion of invariants in data that would otherwise just be a bunch of variables. This is usually indicated by functions that act on the data maintaining the invariants. Those functions are the methods.
I get that many people either don't see, or don't place much importance on the invariants of their data and so they are happy writing functions and even get annoyed by people and their over use of objects. Maybe these people are just way smarter than me; I definitely need objects/classes to help me organize my code.
I'm not convinced invariants are crucial. Common, certainly, but not crucial, I think the opacity is more important.
Take Rust's core::net::Ipv4Addr, that's obviously just a 32-bit value inside - it has no invariants to be maintained, but it's opaque, even though I know it's a 32-bit value, I am actually not able to just directly treat it as the value or prod that value, I have to use certain procedures, which include predicates (to ask if this is, for example, the broadcast address, or a loopback address) and some useful bit operations,
I’m not convinced you need objects to enforce invariants on your data. Why wouldn't you just use a good type system and type-checker to enforce those invariants? They could check if you're using data in places where they're meant to be, without having to bundle data with procedures.
I get that many people either don't see, or don't place much importance on the invariants of their data and so they are happy writing functions and even get annoyed by people and their over use of objects. Maybe these people are just way smarter than me; I definitely need objects/classes to help me organize my code.