Some of these approaches work for Windows, others for Mac, some for Linux, depending on versions of Python that are installed, etc. You can get around some of the problems with pyenv and a bunch of other tools.
My impression at the time was that using it for server side stuff was fine (i have control of the server and simply install all the right things/versions myself) but packaging it up for end users to install on their desktops/mobile was a huge pain, there was no real easy/simple way to just export a self running installer that you double click (on windows/mac) or an IPA/APK (on ios/android) and end up with a running program the way users were used to from e.g. a bundled .net (at the time using mono, now ms provides cross platforms .net implementations themselves) or native c/c++ executable.