In addition to what Mark K5LXP said, CW and Morse Code is a very simple system which was
easily learned by hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, over its (presently) 150-year history.
The long-term success of CW is a tribute to the creativity of its inventor.
It's simple, popular and useful so it has developed a rich cultural history.
CW continues to evolve, with the help of amateur radio. I would suggest that the
wide adoption by hams of automated and semi-automated systems (keyers, readers
and software) has likely made CW more useful as a rag-chewing medium. It has become
more akin to cellphone texting with the possible exception that CW, because it is not
as widely-used as texting, has not been evolving as a new kind of dialect.
Rag-chewing via CW requires a different set of skills for operators who have to formulate
phrases and sentences in their minds before messages can be sent. Before CW automation
most messages were pre-composed. Operators simply translated into code what was already written
and vice-versa. The challenge of coming up with things to say on the spur of the moment
limits the creativity of the messages sent.
At the same time the creation, interpretation and celebration of individualized styles of sending is
slowly disappearing. Sending and receiving is less a personal craft than a machine-imitating
process.
This is in line with the widespread current belief, with the promotion by the tech industry, that the
computer will replace the human mind.