Very interesting. Somewhat related, I’ve occasionally wondered how much of Wordle’s success – apart from it just being a fun game – was down to it being deployed as a web-only ‘app’.

I think there are certainly psychological aspects to its success resulting from that deployment model, e.g., it being a once-a-day and and one-attempt game, but this article leads me to think that there’s possibly success in it simply being provided outside of the walled gardens you describe.