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

 Reality is that the written word, on computer or paper, simply doesn't carry the weight it used to.  Younger audiophiles will never know how BIG an influence Pearson/the Absolute Sound and Holt/Stereophile were in the developmental stage of this hobby.  A good or bad word from either of them back in the day could very often make or break a company.  For better or worse, that kind of influence doesn't seem to exist any longer.  I'd add that Audiogon, in particular, is completely lacking any kind of authoritative Holt/Pearson-type guru.  Although there ARE other websites with established 'voices' that also don't really have much juice.    

In the "soon to be controlled by today's young people" world, there is a whole new job category called "INFLUENCER"...meaning that if you can get enough hits on your page or site, you can paid, and sometimes paid well for bringing eyeballs.

One of the things that I notice on Agon is that it is more or less the same names, over and over again, that are doing the posting...so, in reality, we don't know the number of site visitors, how long they spend on the site and then how many of them actually post.  Agon probably does know and probably uses this data to try to "market" themselves to various industry types....as they should.

Oh, and back to my first point, when you click on an influencer's page, you are going to see photos and videos...which isn't happening here...so, is Agon influencing the industry?  I suspect that individual companies are influenced when they get extremely good or bad commentary...but the industry as a whole...probably not so much....at least not yet.

I interact with a variety of hi-end OEMs in the course of marketing ClarityCaps. I can’t think of more than one or two who follow Audiogon or other high-end forums, and as far as I can see, they do it only out of general interest. Audiocircle is probably the most interesting venue for manufacturers.

Zero impact.  The few people posting on Agon forums are just talking in an echo chamber.  There is no impact on the industry or even the larger audiophile community.  Most audiophiles I know do not read read Agon.