>>81059429I think so, too (though Juna has been pretty open with her frustrations, and Rin has hinted at some things; both seem to have risen up from this year rather than previous from what I've seen). It seemed like Idol wanted to be a "talents first" agency similar to VShojo and things were going fine for a while, probably because they had a fair amount of money at the start to use liberally on advertising and funding the talents ($2,000 for each of them to get whatever they need for streaming, for example), but that money started running out.
I don't do "reps" so I don't know precisely when these financial issues really began to surface, but it seems like it at least started coming to a head towards the end of 2023, beginning of 2024, so I could definitely see it being a result of either the return on investment being below their goals or, as some anons have said, Idol was receiving a stipend from the Israeli government that was redirected once the Gaza situation blew up.
