Popularity is only one reason to store data.
Popularity is local, not global, in Freenet. So if your small group of people with shared values have nodes which shared proximity then they will serve as an island in which that information will survive. It will disappear from the greater network as is proper since no one else wants it. Unfortunately, Freenet has been moving against my protestations towards a system of organization in which you cannot control the proximity of nodes to each other. In the future Freenet the random connections between nodes will mean that popularity is more or less global since you will be statistically likely to share proximity with plebian nodes rather than special interest nodes.