Don't gatekeep this site into obscurity.

There seems to be a weird mentality that I've seen crop up more and more recently. That mentality is that "the bigger RYM gets, the worse it (or its charts) will be". I think this narrative is harmful because, whether intentional or not, it's just another form of elitism. The idea that the current userbase is somehow capable of knowing the "good" albums from the "bad", whereas this is simply impossible for new users. "Us RYMers, we know what real good music is, but the plebeian public only likes Taylor Swift and Drake".

Unfortunately I can't tell you whether the top charts will eventually only consist of Drake and Taylor Swift because there is no real precedent for this; RYM is, currently, the biggest user-based website of its kind when it comes to music. But there are precedents when it comes to movie websites, namely IMDb and Letterboxd.

These two sites also happen to be some of RYM's favorite hobby-horses. IMDb apparently only likes Marvel and Christopher Nolan, whereas Letterboxd only likes queer movies and chick flicks. Except this is just factually untrue. There are still many "obscure" movies on both sites' top 250 movie charts, even if they are less frequent then on RYM's movie site.

So yes, the charts will become a little more "mainstream" as RYM's user base grows. But it's not gonna be as apocalyptic as some users make it out to be.