This is pretty much what I’ve been saying.
Tarkur makes a good point here. A lot of companies that traditionally catered to kids are struggling to connect with today’s children, especially with their hyper-digital upbringing. Their desperation shows in various ways. (From my own observation, it seems like the Transformers franchise has diverged almost completely into extremely simple toys for young kids and more expensive toys for adult collectors.)
It’s probably no coincidence that two of the last holdouts of original IPs, Hidden Side and Nexo Knights, both attempted to lean heavily into app compatibility. But apps don’t really tap into the core appeal of Lego very well, so it’s not altogether surprising this didn’t take off. As for what remains, little kids can’t really appreciate story-driven IPs, and adults are generally not inclined to take Lego-original IPs seriously. Meanwhile, Lego is in a position where they can license almost any franchise they want to, even and especially the ones that practically market themselves.