You can’t easily dismiss the problem by pointing to history.
In those historic times, stock ownership was much more restricted to rich investors (not a good thing) who are far more opinionated in AGMs (a very good thing) than some faceless index fund or Robin Hooder who doesn’t even realize they should vote at all.
So boards used to perform but they also used to have pressure to perform. Will they still perform on autopilot? Maybe, but chaos always wins unless there’s a forcing function (your votes at the AGM).
In those historic times, stock ownership was much more restricted to rich investors (not a good thing) who are far more opinionated in AGMs (a very good thing) than some faceless index fund or Robin Hooder who doesn’t even realize they should vote at all.
So boards used to perform but they also used to have pressure to perform. Will they still perform on autopilot? Maybe, but chaos always wins unless there’s a forcing function (your votes at the AGM).