Yeah, the original concept of OCW wasn't really as materials directly for "end users" at all. I imagine this also helped sell the concept; "people like our current students aren't even the audience for OCW." Over time, OCW has added more things like video lectures as video became cheaper and more ubiquitous but it never had a stated objective of being a course in a box for students to consume directly.

A lot of people were underwhelmed by OCW early on because they were expecting something a lot more consumable for a self-learner--which led to MOOCs of course.