Legendary owned Geek and Sundry before Critical Role ever started. Here’s an article about the sale dated August 2014 while CR doesn’t happen until March 2015.
Ostensibly by their own reporting the C3 period held yearly viewership records. Whether that seeming difference is due to diffusion of viewership across multiple platforms or based on people recommending starting with C2 more than any other is another thing.
The subreddit that exists because they got a slight amount of pushback on hating Aabria Iyengar in a different subreddit is probably not the best place to find well reasoned criticism, yes.