I think I've got this figured out but would like some confirmation and even some elaboration by folks in the know. It seems the mistake I made was that I made the "view" on the top level hosted feature layer and not on the desired sub layer. When I created the view on the sub layer, I was able to make the originating hosted feature layer private (org only) and editable and then make the view layer public and not editable and the rest endpoint for that layer was visible without logging in.
The question is, why does that work on the sub layer but not on a view created from the top level hosted feature layer. To that end, I'm confused about the ins-and-outs of the structure of hosted feature layers and the sub layers that they contain? The terminology is very confusing. How can a layer contain more layers? Seems like naming the top level "hosted feature layer" to "hosted feature service" and then the subsequent sub layers would be hosted feature layers. Similar to how ArcGIS Server naming conventions. Or maybe the top layer should be "hosted group layer". It's been hard communicating to my departmental "non gis users" how all this works. "Open the hosted feature layer and then click the layer and then..."
Anyway, any confirmation that this is the correct way to do this would be greatly appreciated.