When is enough for a KPop act? - the Struggle for Continuous success among hit KPop Act

Alice Rosenbaum was born at St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1905 when Russia had its first Revolution.

After USSR was established, Rosenbaum was engaged in various anti-regime activities.

At that time USSR tended to expel potential troublemakers, so it expelled her who ended up in USA and took the moniker of Ayn Rand.

This is not a place to discuss her philosophies, but in one of her books there was a character whose family obligation was that the person had to double the family's wealth in his generation, and every generation had to double the previous gen's worth.

Rand didn't like children and few children ever appear on her books, but eventually, because the earth is finite, the wealth-doubling scheme would have hit a limit at some point and all the wealth in the world would not have been enough to double that family's wealth, like the fable of the chessboard (a guy , as a reward for inventing chess, wanted a grain of wheat at square 1, 2 grains at square 2, 4 grains at square 3, etc- by the time we get to the final, 64th square it would have taken about 1,600 times the yearly wheat production of the earth to fulfill the obligation. There are variations about how that story ended; in one version the inventor of chess was simply beheaded for offering a ridiculous proposition, and in another version, he transformed into the god Krishna, who still demands grains at his temple since the debt to him has not been paid off yet.)

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Except people like Psy or a certain 1,343 years old, most Kpop acts have a pressure to outdo their previous promotion.

KPop is a cutthroat field where there are no permanent friends, and if an act is seen lagging, it is quickly overaken by another act which will be very happy to take over that act's position.

Even BTS cannot stay still. It has to prove itself all the time, which is why avoiding the military gap is quite important since by the time the military services are over other acts would have taken its places.

Newer acts have to outdo one another, plus their previous records. Companies have very short patience and acts which can't outdo their previous promotions are not easily given another chance.

When the Big Three , SM, JYP and YG, dominated KPop the acts at least had some security since their companies would protect them and their positions were secure.

But there is no security at all, and every act has to outdo everyone else.

I do think that at some point that will hit a wall, and a collapse might occur, but for the time being the KPop acts can't sit still.

This chariot race, where there is no rest, no respite and constant pressure to advance, has transformed the post-Covid KPop scene a lot.

People like Psy and a 1,343 years old will retain their positions since they are established and their positions are secure. However, KPop acts are like employees, and even the most successful acts are subject to their companies who want them to do more. So there won't be any respites for the various KPop acts, big or small, in today's world.

Quote from bbgc

Which temple is that? The temple with the richest tributes, has a different legend, that the deity there borrowed heavily from the god of wealth for his wedding and his devotees are donating to pay the eons long debt.

As to the rest of your lecture, utter nonsense as usual.

JYPE did not dump Itzy because they had not achieved the heights Twice have.. so you exclude the big 3.

DSP did not dump their groups because they did not achieve FinKL or Kara levels.

Starship did not dump WJSN, comparing with Sistar.

Yes, it is cut-throat competition and which industry does not have that. It looks heightened in Kpop because of the short window of careers and high levels of exposure. But market capitalism is always that way.

As to IU and Psy (not that much now), they have carved out their own independent lanes in that chariot races, so are much less susceptible to the competition. But that they have earned later.

Earlier in her career, IU was just another rat scrambling hard to stay afloat, like her contemporaries. Maybe it is after 2017 does she have the current aura of invincibility.

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What the big companies do is they do the amount of money and effort spent on promotions and keeping them on shoestring, while spending more efforts in more successful acts.

DSP was run by a novice who didn't know left and right, and where it is now? Bough out by RBW who appears to be neglecting acts not seen as being profitable.

WJSD was a joint venture with China whose Chinese members did pay dividends during the time of their contracts. Now the deal with China is over and they are put into the back burner.

Psy ran his own thing in his first round, joined YG and was backstabbed by the latter who was to cover for Psy's absence for the stupid university events but didn't and cost Psy's Billboard bid. IU gained her independence as a compensation for enduring the humiliation of receiving the lifetime achievement at the age of 21, something which was recognized on her re-signing on 2015 from which she basically ran her own show.

Quote from BlackpinkHouse

It's a dog eat dog world. But Kpop will never collapse. Sales will never go from 1M to 100k, Kpop will eventually plateau and stay there as long as new groups rise to take the place of old ones. Even Kpop charting has experienced a renaissance, last year everyone was complaining about Kpop being made extinct in Korean charts and this past year, we saw a huge resurgence in domestic charting with the rise of the 4th generation and the 4.5 generation in particular.

The sacrifice of Izone and the hiatus of BTS have paved the way for this resurgence. SKZ seems poised to take over the mantle of BTS, while we have like 8 groups that could take over for Twice and BP.

Except JYP has a knack to make the worst possible decision at the most critical moment.

Still it is a race to the top, a very brutal one. A huge fight where a 2 million album sales will be a flop.