What's the fun in that? Almost half the fun of finding a new game is discovering how it works by trial and error. Watching hours of someone else playing a game I just picked up seems self-defeating. Are there really people who want to start new games and being good at them from the get go?

Different people enjoy different things. Personally I don't have much interest in playing but I did enjoy watching Ultimus Rex's gameplay while doing other tasks.

Another good player to watch is Corgi Circus who came to the game through being popular in the Territorial.io world, a similar but far simpler game: https://www.youtube.com/@CorgiCircus – https://territorial.io/ is worth playing as an alternative if you only have 5 minutes to spare though but the strategy is quite simple.

The last thing I need in my life is to get competent at these quick pick up and play multiplayer browser games. Sheesh.

same! popped up on my youtube feed and i've been watching almost everyday