That is the genius of it. Cheating in Wordle is so easy that there is no point doing it.. But sharing results etc. has high homophily effect.

I think it's more about potential trademark rights and the current userbase, who have built a habit of returning to the same page daily.

Surely part of the deal includes at some point setting up a redirect from there over to the NYT-hosted incarnation.

I guess I'd like to ask the same question about NFTs.

But I'm guessing it's the social licence NYT are paying for. The owner says it's theirs.