Yeah, I think this sums it up better.
LSS didn’t fail because it was a BR, it “failed” (if it did at all) because it was very “sweaty”, and had fairly cramped maps.
Think about it, 12 people on a BTB map (which most of the time had giant sightlines and fairly wide vehicle roads, in combination with all the maps being 3 laned) made it hard to have a “mini” BR experience. Most of the time, you could just camp with your five lives in your favorite spot and then clutch the end 1v1 with ~4 lives. In a BR, you are pretty much constantly moving. This is true in Apex, Fortnite, and even Totally Accurate Battle Grounds or Forza’s eliminator. You are always advancing, whether for loot (or a better car!), because of the ring, or otherwise.
As for LSS being sweaty, it feeds into the last point, you camp in a corner, steal orbs, grab the power ups, and then you clutch the end 1v1. I don’t think you can really do that in a BR. Sure, you can hide, but it isn’t as easy to stick to one spot for an entire game.
And to think a BR is super competitive and sweaty is kind of a two way thing. On the one hand, during fights it can be super sweaty. After all, you have to make sure to land your shots and (in Halo’s BR) pop their shields faster. But, for the majority of the game, you’re pretty much just wandering around for weapons and in gamemodes with more than one person, you can party up and vibe with “the boys”.
See, this is kinda what I’m talking about. LSS wasn’t very casual, and easily give an old grandpa a free ride in an ambulance from high blood pressure. I don’t think that happens in a BR as much.
Here’s another thing, did LSS even fail? Sure, it had low population, but the entire game does. On top of that, Rumble Pit also has low population, and the competitive FFA crowd has no reason to play Infinite at the moment. It’s entirely possible there just aren’t enough people that enjoy FFA and gungame to fill LSS matches. If LSS had duos then more people might hop in, and if it had trios there could be even more beyond that.