Only comment I have is do people know that Spotify is only about 25% of international listeners?
Using Spotify for a short hand for "intl metrics" is incredibly, incredibly flawed, not even getting into autoplay and playlisting which boosts streams.
I've got no qualms if people want to talk internationally, but you need to talk about ALL international, not a very narrow set of criteria that matches your narrative. That, right now, is LSF fans who bring up Spotify (which Hybe makes a very specific effort with extra "tools" to assist) but ignore how strong some of the top groups are in non spotify countries, and/or on Youtube Music, which has a different demographic and geographical spread.
Do LSF have some clout internationally? Certainly. But going "oh they did x on spotify" doesn't take into account massive listening countries who use other platforms, foremost being China, Spotify doesn't have anywhere near the penetration in Europe it has in USA, and as I said, if a company specifically uses, let's call them, "promotional tools" - that should be weighed in.
You don't count Youtube Ad views on Youtube for obvious reasons when comparing metrics. So why are we not taking into account Spotify Discovery and Spotify playlisting the same way?
That''s the only question i want answered. Why is it complete radio silence whenever that topic is broached. Everytime someone brings this up suddenly people who couldn't shut up about international listeners are suddenly mute.
FWIW - I think LSF is still the same tier as the Aespa/IVE/Idle/NJ. I dont' support the OP's claim. But LSF fans, if you want to have this discussion, you need to get far smarter about this.