But I need to know if people would be interested in paying to use this site, and if lots of people would use it.
I also need to imagine highly-specialized features that would interest manufacturers that they would not find nowhere (and idem for customers), so that my Webapp would have a real added value.
What are the steps to follow to answer those questions? Could I simply go to their forums and asks them their needs?
More importantly, have you considered the pollution and carbon footprint this would create?