How is that meaningless ? Do you also consider races meaningless ? Do you consider most sports meaningless ? You probably don't like it because that's not how you learned to enjoy games, not because it's inherently worse than Ameritrash
Sports don't stop the race randomly because somebody has found 'victory points' under their chair. Payers' efforts are rewarded with clearly recognized progress (down the field/on the scoreboard). There are time limits and buzzers and some sense of tension. Not just grind along and then, randomly, 'its over, and you lost'.
It sounds like you just haven't properly learned to account for the strategy of the game, or are not correctly tracking win conditions and using them to inform decisions.
If you just blithely play out a self-centered strategy and are somehow surprised when Charlie claims the Longest Road card and declares himself the winner, then sure it might feel disappointing to lose.
Instead try to be aware that for the last two turns Amanda has been 2 ore away from completing her last city and winning, but someone would need to roll exactly a 9 to do it on her own, while Bob has already completed all his cities but is unable to build more roads and Caroline is staying one Knight ahead of his army size through the help of Amanda giving her resources for the greater good. Maybe your win-con is going to have to be to steal Amanda's longest-road card and build another settlement which is gonna be a long shot but maybe given Amanda's desperation for ore and everyone-but-you's unwillingness to trade with Bob, you can do it. Maybe you can beat the odds and come from behind, maybe you can't, but either way an abrupt "it's over you lost" can never happen -- only someone executing their win-con better than you did, with the table unable to stop them.
