I do think we make a difference, and I think that CCP developing the game without the CSM would result in quite a few worse outcomes.
I want to address the “CCP doesn’t tell the CSM anything” stuff, because I think that is largely a misperception. The list of things they intentionally don’t tell us because they don’t want to put us in a position where players can accuse us of using inside information for our own benefit is pretty small.
What I think is causing this perception is how often really dumb things happen or are added and players immediately demand to know “did the CSM know about this?!” and generally when that happens we don’t - because if we had, we likely could have gotten them to fix the dumb thing or not do the dumb thing in the first place. It’s one of the reasons why I always harp as much as I can on the need for them to give us heads up on patch notes and dev blogs before they come out, and for the most part they do.
In the end, for the CSM to do CCP any good at all, they have to be willing to work with us. Most teams do that, and I think the end product is better for it. That said, there’s plenty of room for improvement - both on our side and on their side.