That's not really a good take IMO, Ballon d'Ors don't exist in a vacuum, they're pretty much based around the competitors you have at the time. Messi was head and shoulders above everybody, and had the greatest club team ever assembled at his service, which he had a large part in making that team so incredible. Mbappe's competition for individual awards is much, much higher than what Messi dealt with for the first half of his career, until CR7 came around and even then it was more or less a two-horse race. I said at the time it wouldn't take long to see other players put out stats like they did, and sure enough the Lewandowski's, Mbappe's, Haaland's, and even Benzema started reaching those incredible figures that we hardly saw prior to those two.
Now that Messi and CR7 are on their way out, I expect Mbappe to collect a few of his own, but the number of Ballon d'Ors aren't necessarily a reflection of a players' absolute greatness, or at least not solely that, because it's a silly award that doesn't always make sense (Ribery should have won it over Messi in 2013 for example, Zidane should have won it over Figo in 2000 but for a headbutt, Modric should never have won it in 2019, and Lewandowski got screwed out of one just because of Covid, just a few examples) but also a lack of individual, game-changing players, and team success (although now I hear they've taken team achievements a bit more out of the equation, however that works).
