Whyknock said "All problems of KPop ultimately originate from IU".
I wanted to write "What if BTS had ditched Korea altogether" but that is a smaller what if than the fundamental question, the toxic Korean music scene.
I compare the Korean music scene and KPop as a huge tree whose roots are in a small vase. with the vase being a HUGE limiting factor and IU playing a huge role of maintaining it.
I think KPop was doomed on this day, January 6, 2012.
This is the day Iu decisively defeated SNSD, and for the first time since 2009, when SNSD's dominance became absolute, there was someone other than it whom other singers had to reckon with.
IU blatantly began to ignore SNSD, and that point is when the domestic scene in Korea became relevant again.
There are more stories but that will bore the readers so I will move on to the main point.
Without IU, all Kpop acts would have been able to operate without thinking about Korea in 2011.
Not too many people pay attention to the pop scene in , say, Philippines. Korea's music scene would have been like that too - mostly populated by rookies, who would advance to the world as long as they gained some relevance, since even in 2011 Korean birthrate was declining and companies had to think about the future which was not in Korea.
But the rise of IU gave the Korean scene an importance which far exceeded its actual influence, and all KPop acts now had to reckon with a domestic figure who was not really relevant outside of Korea, since at that time there were feew non-Korean sources to judge the successes of KPop acts and since Iu dominated Melon Kpop followers began to see her as someone important, even though she could not release any songs which appealed to the foreigners.
If Spotify and Youtube Music came on just 3 years before when they were actually released everything would have changed but Melon dominated for too long.
It is significant that all the acts which debuted after Spotify became the benchmark did not pay any filial duty to the former owner of Edam Entertainment, since she is not relevant in Spotify.
However, she exercised her influence over the greatest generations of KPop, 2nd, 3rd and 4th (I was very dismayed to see Idle in Palette) , which significantly limited their reach because they had to spend some time in Korea, so the damage was more than done.
