aramis erak
Legend
I do consider it a social occasion. Even when running open D&D AL tables, I was always there early, and I'd be available to go for post game beverages and snacks to discuss a variety of subjects, including rules issues in session.The key difference is one of expectation: you apparently view gaming as a social encounter, at least in part. I view gaming, F2F or online, as gaming. The people I game online with share the same focus. I also note that a lot of my players are veterans of MMOs, where teamwork is also pure audio interaction.
My player base generally is not inclined to MMORPGs, but are to certain social play games: Among Us was a bit of a fad, Minecraft is on private servers in groups with massive mods, etc. The group is almost entirely a friend-group that happens to have the dad of one of their friends running games for them. (The causality is different: I was running for AL, two of the girls were playing at my table. My kids came down, and met kids their age at AL games, both my and others' tables. Their friend group spread, and they and their new friends brought more to my table.)