I agree. Novice chess is great. Especially with local peers. I find it loses its appeal pretty quick when you start playing in a system like lichess however. Once you stop progressing quickly which is probably around a month or three of interested play.

That may not hold if it’s an established form of social competition where you can earn prestige by being good at it within your local peer group. It would be nice to see more intellectual challenges take that role among young people.