Honestly, I have exactly the same question. I saw dozen articles that talk about the thing but noone mentions exactly how it works / what happens after you catch a pokemon.
> So the thing is that nobody knew how it worked and all the information has been word of mouth from the process of deduction
I really like this about it. At the popular spots near me, you can overhear a lot of rumors and guessing about how certain features work. "My friend says he caught his Dragonite at this gas station! But I wasn't there to see it, so I don't know if it's true."
It reminds me of the original games. When people would spread rumors about how "holding __ button while the pokeball spins make it work better" or "You can catch mew if you glitch behind this truck." and so on, almost none of them actually being true. In a few weeks, we'll have a P:GO Wiki filled with confirmed information, people analyzing the binaries to see what does and doesn't exist, realtime maps of exact pokemon locations.... And I just don't think it will be as magical anymore.
I much prefer "I think you can find this pokemon in that park" over "There is one of them at this intersection, and you have 11 minutes and 34 seconds until it despawns. Be sure to feed it only 2 razz berries, and then use a left curveball for the best odds."
It happens for all popular games eventually and I agree that it kills the magic. It makes it impossible in most competitive games to win on knowledge. In most games you can compete on skill (or grinding), but I strongly miss that particular flavour of winning because you understand more about the game. I remember the days when as kids my friends and I were playing StarCraft over LAN, and at some point I started to kick their asses because I learned the attack type/armor type coefficients and height difference bonuses, while they didn't.
As for non-competitive games, you lose the discoverability aspect - but that at least can be overcome by purposefully refusing to read on-line material. I did that with Stardew Valley to my great enjoyment. The game would be much more boring if I simply went on-line, read the tips and started to min-max the shit out of it.
So the thing is that nobody knew how it worked and all the information has been word of mouth from the process of deduction
annnnd people like it, which is the primary driving factor
(so the answer is open the app? if you are in a launched country)