If you have no other competition in a specific service whatsoever, no matter how many people despise you, you’d still be the most popular by lack of competition.
Depends on how exactly you define popular.
If you use a definition that includes anything like “liked and admired” then she doesn’t fit. Her service is busy but as this thread shows, most people openly state they only go to her because they have no other choice for these cracks.
Using popular hides how many people actively want to jump ship if only there was competition. It’s like saying that Comcast is popular because they have so many customers who don’t have a viable alternative to using them.
I’m sorry for, pointing out how popular isn’t the best choice of word?
But no matter how you slice it, popular isn’t a great descriptor. Whether you choose the prescriptivist “the dictionary says x thus the word means x no matter what” or the descriptivist “most people use the word to mean y thus the word means y no matter what”, in this case they both agree.
Both groups agree that when I say “Jim is popular” it makes you think that people generally like Jim. It evokes some level of communal approval. The dictionary literally defines the word to mean likeable, and the general usage still seems to denote general approval.
So either way, it doesn’t represent the Empress situation. A situation where the majority of the community at best doesn’t care and at worst openly dislikes her as a person because of her behavior, but still comes back for the games. She has a monopoly, but that doesn’t make her inherently popular. Most people who know seem to dislike, and most who don’t will also have no bearing on her popularity.
