Why do folks spend more on electronics than on speakers?

These "what is the most important component" threads put me in mind of the question, what is the most important your shoulder, your arm or your hand.  It takes a whole system to let you hug your wife.  Everything matters.

A system is a total of its parts and the end result hopefully would be positive but I am from the camp that speakers are the most important purchase and should be where the most money should be invested. I have had audiophiles over and one told me that he thought that I could put any components on them and they will sound good.

to say the speaker selection/purchase is the most important and most impactful towards the goal of great sound in the room being used is true... but it is not the same as saying the speakers need to be the most expensive component in the system... 

best not to conflate a vs b...

10 years spent seriously building a ‘budget’ system on mostly used equipment, I ended up with a 10% speaker (LS-50) that really isn’t worth upgrading, yet.  Along the way I went through 5 amps, 4 pre-amps, three sets of speakers, three brands of cables, 4 DACs, tubes, transistors, old school, new school, you get the picture.  
 

None of the equipment was cheap, or bad for that matter.  But the one thing that was apparent was that speakers made the least difference.  However, the best speakers had the greatest intolerance for poor quality.  Components that sounded great on cheaper speakers sounded bad on really good, resolving speakers.  Conversely, all the speakers sounded good on good equipment.  And full range is never cheap, so I live with the sub for when it’s needed.
 

Most importantly, once a certain quality threshold is met, price and performance are not as coupled as one may think, which is why few end up on the same path when it comes to price for a particular component.

I am going to try to answer your question with a completely different answer than every other one I have seen. You asked WHY. Not what makes the most sense, but WHY. Why do some people have far more money in electronics than speakers.

I think for the almost all audiophiles, whether they admit it or not, it is a matter of logistics and retail therapy. Audiophiles buy equipment because they like to buy equipment. It’s retail therapy for them. Just the simple act of something new is a psychological reward. Come on, admit it, you all know this is true.

That brings us to logistics. Most amplifiers, and almost any other product are easy to buy, pack, and ship. There are 300lb amplifiers but they are the exception. Even a 75lb amplifier is fairly easy to pack and ship. Speakers are a pain. They are heavy, they are awkward, they are difficult to ship, if buying used, shipping can be a substantial part of the price. But the audiophile needs his retail therapy fix. The best choice would be to upgrade the speakers, but that take a lot of effort. Even selling a used pair is a lot of work. So, instead, the audiophile upgrades their DAC, their pre, adds some high end cables, and before you know it, those $5K speakers which represented a large portion of their system, are now $5K speakers in a $30K system.