I don't think that's all of it though, and a lesson ED should learn. The other space games launched at the same time are both more successful than ED; one is an eternal alpha, the other is a cartoony game that had such a bad launch it became a meme and the poster boy for overhype. ED despite being an actual game with a solid launch ED now sits on the 3rd step of the podium. And I think the answer why is in that post - ED is just not a good person scale game.
That is an odd comment. You don’t need to be a good person scale game to be successful, ask EVE

All space games out there have their limitations, including ED, but that doesn’t preclude them from being successful.
Either way not really sure how you can consider SC above in the “podium” to be honest, not just compared to ED but to most other popular space games… unless you just mean revenue wise, which mostly affects Chris Roberts and his family.
Regarding reviews, critic scores, overall gaming industry acknowledgment & top space game rankings, player concurrency or units sold games like ED or Space Engineers or (the original) Kerbal are all much more successful than SC. NMS is probably top of the food chain here, no doubt, but it had the support of the Sony marketing machinery and related sales to thank for its resurrection, otherwise Murray would have likely never had the money to improve NMS after launch the way he did.