I didn't get it when it first was a thing (like 15 years ago) but now I watch streams of esports/pvp and I watch longplays to scratch an itch for games I have no intention of putting the full time sink into but need to experience bits of the game (like FF7Remake). Being able to skip or passively consume the boring bits is good and it's less addictive than playing.

Occasionally if they are genuinely funny or are a personality I care about, I find the streamer can be additive to the experience.

For example it was quite hilarious and interesting seeing Justin Wong of street fighter fame trying out Elden Ring. Same for Demetrious Johnson from UFC

I love longplays and other let's play style things, even barely adjacent categories like Game Grumps where it's half podcast.

But I can't stand streaming because the entire culture is infantile and lowest common denominator. It's the same problem I have with Short form video content and microblogging, that in order to optimally attract the large market that prefers that content, you have to do things that are extremely off putting to people with my interests.

So for example, anyone playing a game on twitch will be pushed, by chat and by the invisible hand of the attention market, to optimize for stupid things. Instead of a roguelike build that is good, you will make a roguelike build that is "memey" because that gets you a larger audience. There's an aura of forcing chaos and chat sycophancy. It encourages the kind of antisocial behavior that sucks, like people in twitch plays pokemon who spent the entire time trying to ruin it.

There's also the problem that half the platform seems to be just softcore porn. Or gambling now.

Many streamers also run a popular youtube channel, and you can recognize a massive difference between content made directly for long form youtube videos vs their streamed content. IMO the quality itself is drastically different.

Streamers who don't do those kinds of things remain niche.