I've been strict keto now for over five years. Prior to that I was clinically obese for decades. I tried lots of different dieting approaches and most of them "worked" to lose weight to some extent. The issue was I would always regain the weight because I couldn't maintain the diet due to the constant hunger and sense of deprivation. While all diets, including keto, ultimately "work" through calorie reduction. The unique aspect of keto for me was it was the only approach that allowed me to reduce calories without hunger or deprivation.
N=1 and individual metabolisms and preferences are different, so I don't try to extrapolate my results to everyone. All I can say is that after struggling for so long with so many other approaches, keto worked for me so fast, so easily and so well - it does feel almost like a hack.
Pointing out the thermodynamics of weight loss with calories in/out is stupid though because there is a huge dependency in the amount of calories consumed based on the type of food and if the food has been engineered to taste super good.
I've had incredible success with keto, but I did yo-yo back, the downside of keto being so easy is that it's hard to get back into it, knowing that you'll almost effortlessly get results eventually, so I'm nutritionally procrastinating.