The fact that interviews are so standardized in this industry is such a rarity and the pros outweigh the cons for me as someone interviewing. It means you should basically know exactly what to expect, and you have every resource, most free, to study for them. I find that a much more meritocratic process than the way hiring is done in many other industries/professions.
The alternative is widely varying interviews from one company to the next with no idea what to expect, which leads to a mismatch in expectations and mostly wasted time. Take home coding assignments is one alternative I see as well but as someone interviewing that is a much bigger time commitment and something I would not want to do especially if I’m interviewing at a few places.
The problem with take home assignments is that while investing time the candidate doesn't know how it will be judged. Sometimes people want just a working prototype but sometimes they want essentially a production quality high-performance code.
The alternative is widely varying interviews from one company to the next with no idea what to expect, which leads to a mismatch in expectations and mostly wasted time. Take home coding assignments is one alternative I see as well but as someone interviewing that is a much bigger time commitment and something I would not want to do especially if I’m interviewing at a few places.