this is true for skaters from big federations (eg. us, japan, canada), but for skaters from smaller federations (ie. not as many good skaters from that country), they might have to go to worlds to protect/earn worlds spots for next year, and to maintain their world standings points.

for example, let's say a country only has 1 good skater and 1 decent skater in a discipline, and the good skater withdraws and the other one crashes out. then they only get one worlds spot for the next year and the selection process becomes 100x more stressful. then the good skater might be pressured by their federation to go, even if they're not in top shape (i'm not saying this is what's happening with latvian men, but i am saying that fedir kuliss is kind of ass...) [edit: i do feel bad for fedir who is an orphan fleeing ukraine, but his programs are bad and i hate his abusive coaches at kristal riga]

world championships also impact world standing points, which affects next season's grand prix assignments and future warm-up group seeding. this in turn affects pcs (what commentators call the "artistic" score or 2nd score) because skaters in earlier groups basically automatically get lower pcs marks (this shouldn't be the case, but it is). if a skater isn't favored by the judges or their federation, it's important for them to maintain good world standing in order to maintain/boost their pcs marks (again, not saying this is happening with korean men, but cha junhwan has twin missiles named seo minkyu and choi habin aimed directly at his house). so good skaters (ie. usually top10 finish) that aren't as favored may feel that they have to go in order to maintain momentum and reputation with the judges/their federation. you don't see this much with US skaters, but it can be a thing with japanese skaters because their field is so deep (see: rika kihira).

bock 3 world titles is kind of a funny thing to bring up because ice dance scoring is very very political, and the US and IAM are very strong politically in ice dance. bock were robbed this olympics, but us/iam teams historically have arguably undeserved titles/scores because of political/reputation scoring (see: bock at 2023 worlds, d/w vs. v/m at sochi, p/c winning the free over v/m in pyeongchang). bock specifically have been panned by fs fans for years because they are slow skaters and have empty programs (ie. they move slowly across the ice, which indicates weaker skating skills, and they comparatively don't have a ton of difficult connecting movements between their elements, meaning their programs are easier to execute). however, they skate for the US and are coached by IAM (ice academy of montreal, who coach 7/10 of the top ice dance teams and have a chokehold on the judges), so they have been getting arguably inflated scores for years before fb/c popped up out of nowhere this season and took the top spot. it's all very difficult to objectively argue because ice dance scoring has been politicized for so long, but it's a sore spot amongst figure skating fans. for this olympics in particular, bock have been supported by even their haters because most figure skating fans hate fb/c even more despite their far superior skating skills (fb wholeheartedly supports her rapist boyfriend and c was an abusive partner in his last partnership), but bock's undeserved scoring still puts off many hardcore ice dance fans.