I am a bit old, and never got why so many people watch “actual play”. I’ve done it once or twice to get the mechanic of a game, but found the experience more technical/boring than fun.
I get having a guest or candidate player watching an in person to see how rpg work, or whether they click with the group, but somehow watching video of strangers playing RPG doesn’t sounds fun to me. But I might miss something considering how popular these actual plays are
It’s story time with dice, so the story tellers don’t know what’s going to happen next, so there are meaningful moments of suspense.
Critical Roll is probably actually a bad example here, because it’s produced and designed as a TV show. Podcasts with reasonably sized episodes can make for good tales that I can listen to in the car or while at the gym.