I only watched 3 episodes of LLS and it didn't grab my attention. However, a post at Beta-Waffle re-kindled my interest with an interesting spoiler:

The point is that the game has changed. Everyone knows about μ’s, and everyone is trying to imitate that success. This is as true outside of the universe of the series as it is within it, of course. Admittedly, being linked to the Love Live franchise gives the real-life Aqours a massive leg-up on the competition, but the fact that just being a carbon copy of their predecessors is likely to result in only short-term interest would likely be true regardless.

In universe, though, the events of these episodes mark an important segregation point. Up until this point, the characters thought that μ’s were the pinnacle of the School Idol universe. They were the thing to be chased. It was who they were imitating, and what the events were paralelling. The reality is that, outside of their sleepy town, unbeknownst to them, their idols had instead become the baseline. Everyone knows about μ’s and A-RISE at their peaks, and everyone knows how imitate them. There’s nothing special about doing that, and it’ll get you literally nowhere. You have to be at least μ’s to be worthwhile.

Which is going to make the next few episodes interesting, as the characters have to start mapping a course beyond their heroines.

That Sunshine was a carbon copy of the original LL became a bit of an easy target for comentators, to the point that people started posting side-by-side screencap galleries. But now this.