Note - this is a commercial decision of the airline, not a technical one. It's almost always technically feasible
Indeed it is technically feasible to through-check your baggage almost anywhere on the planet, even if you don't have a ticket at all.
A friend of mine in Oz discovered this a few years ago when she took a domestic flight on Qantas from Brisbane to Canberra. Direct, non-stop flight, 100% domestic, so pretty low-risk on the lost baggage scale.
Her bag didn't arrive in Canberra. Neither was it left in Brisbane. It was eventually tracked down in - wait for it - Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
Turns out the person ahead of her in the check-in queue at Brisbane had been travelling to Salt Lake City, via SYD and LAX. The agent had somehow printed an extra baggage tag for this person (or it had been jammed in the machine, and came out when the next tag was printed), so that the tag ended up on my friend's bag - which was then duly and efficiently sent off on a rather longer journey than my friend.
She got it back eventually. And I now always linger at the check-in counter to watch the agent attach the correct tag to my suitcase.