How much do we at A'gon influence the industry?

I say it is significant . Manufacturers seem to end up coming here to comment on negative things written about them . It doesn't take long for word to reach them it seems . Is there a bigger audio forum than here ? I am not aware of anything being bigger . Look at recently the class d audio forum where Mivera audio was active for a few days , it did not take Nord Acoustics long to join Audiogon and reply to Miveras posts . Thats just one example , but it happens pretty frequently . 

Another example I thought of was a couple years ago I attended Rocky Mountain Audio fest . I was talking to the Paradigm Rep about what was being written after the first night of the show on Audiogon . He said he was aware . These companies look to get public opinion and get it from places like Audiogon 

I don't post much but this question intrigues me. I've been involved with sales and marketing in different industries for over 30 years and we took advantage of any sources we could to help our members to make a decision. Audiogon is important to marketing efforts in the audiophile community as well as other Audio sites since they give us information we can use to pass on to our members. So yeh.  I do think Audiogon does influence our buying.  One of the problems comes in when the product  from the "Boutique Audio" builder that has these fabulous reviews  but can't keep up with the demand. And then you have negative reviews. I do think we have a problem in how quickly information is passed.

I'm an old dude.  I used to buy magazines to learn about new products.  It took time before a new product came out and I had a chance to read the reviews.  Now, write something and push enter and it's there.  There might be these hidden gems that we never have a chance to listen to since they could't keep up with demand.

Probably not as much as it should. It is free market data here. It would be a waist for manufactures not to use it. 

Also I never seek out demos of gear unless it has good reviews here. It is hard to demo stuff, demo rooms suck half the time.

I am almost to the point where I would look at measurement and forum opinions and buy blind. But I have also heard a ton of gear and know what I like and have some personal “references” to go off of and know my room well.