You’re disconnected from reality. You say titles cost nothing. You really don’t think it costs companies money to progress employees from engineer to senior to staff and so on?
You seem to agree title inflation is common and you say fancy titles are given out like candy. If everyone easily gets promotions, what does that say about someone who’s not given such easy candy?
If you work at a company that has a bunch of pay levels, and levels are tied to titles then sure I guess you see titles as "meaningful". (Personally I think the pay part us the meaningful part, but hey, whatever floats your boat.) I'm not sure your title has any meaning beyond your company though.
Where I work, pay is based on skills, experience, quality and value of work produced. I can call myself "programming super-god" if I like but that has no effect on my pay. Some companies just have pay levels and you're an L5 or whatever.
You seem to agree title inflation is common and you say fancy titles are given out like candy. If everyone easily gets promotions, what does that say about someone who’s not given such easy candy?