Idunno, people like to blame what's popular for the low popularity of... well, what's not popular.
Thing is, there will always be a divide between popular and small comics because it's part of the very definition of those terms. Popular indicates it gets more attention than the average.
What actually matters is whether or not the site makes some effort to give everyone a shot or not. I have no idea what the conspiracy theories people have about webtoon favoritism are all about, and i have no idea if they are reasonable. However i think that when an algorithm is easy to see and predict or when the promotion of their preferred series is direct, then i think it's fine and all good. Typical business move. BUT if webtoon really have created an algorithm or method to sneakily push down some comics and elevate others unfairly, then this would count as hidden marketing which is generally frowned upon as it skews the audience's knowledge of whether or not the things they are told are totes super cool bro, are told to be such because of an actual statistic or because of some kind of bias.
To illustrate what I mean in a way easier to understand: You know how sponsored youtube content comes with the marking "this video contains sponsored material"? That's honesty in regards to bias. Webtoons would basically be doing the opposite of that if the paranoia people have is truth based. I am more inclined to doubt that webtoons are showing "favoritism" as people call it (i do not count specific promotion into that term because honestly that's normal business behavior) however I am unsure what to think now hearing some of the things a few of you describe. It sounds like something is very wonky about their algorithm.