Sounds like a stupid question but stay with me on this...I have been into this since the Arc LS era...There are/must be 1000's of more manufacturers of lights than there were so are we at saturation point or has our hobby expanded exponentially??? I really dont know?Thoughts pls...Is the membership of say here proportional with the expanded marketplace?
Flashlight companies come and go, just like any other segment of industry, with the good ones lasting longer than the not-so-good ones. Even the former tend to fade away, like Sunwayman, ShiningBeam (both languishing) et. al, while new ones emerge like Emisar, AstroLux and Convoy.
Now the trend is shifting to modders and inexpensive makers like Sofirn, Lumintop and Manker, that immediately get ripped down and modded with different drivers, emitters and even firmware.
The big box makers are still producing lots of products, like Fenix, Olight, Acebeam and Nitecore, but their prices are spendy, out of the box.
This place started slowing down, by my estimation, in the fall of '17 and for some reason, people have left and/or, just don't post. With the modders coming on strong, BLF has grown into a more popular place. I first noticed it when the 'reviews' forum almost became a ghost town, almost overnight and now with the 'batteries/electronics' forum being devoid of many new posts.
Things are no doubt cyclic, but that's how I see it.
I still love posting here, but CPF isn't what it was, even three short years ago.
Chris