I think the Nickelback problem is even bigger than that. You had this period in the early 2000's where pop music was basically the most watered down corporate rock sound you could imagine. By now that has all faded and been replaced with silly hip hop songs about butts, but back then fake-as-fuck rock was the thing, and everyone slowly started to hate it. Of course, most people liked at least one or two fake-as-fuck rock bands, or at least two fake-as-fuck rock songs. So Nickelback, which is artistically the rock equivalent of elevator music, became the symbol of that era of annoying song that everyone has agreed to hate so that nobody hates on each others exceptions.