3D Modelling in a Browser

The problem with the traditional pay once (with paid upgrades) model is that in order to continue developing the software, developers need to be paid every month. So a hugely variable revenue stream needs to be converted into a monthly one. Maybe by being very conservative about spending on developer resources to leave a big buffer.

There's also mismatched incentives, since if all your revenue is from paid upgrades it might make more sense to focus on flashy new features even if the majority of users care more about stability and bug fixes.

There's the issue of how much effort to spend back-porting bug fixes to older versions. Users will rightly be annoyed with having to choose between bugs and an upgrade that (they consider to be) not worth it, so the devs probably have to put in some effort. But then with the old model the developers are putting in more work and fewer users have access to new features, and the total amount users are paying still has to be high enough to fund everything.

These days I'm happy to pay for things I use on subscription (as long as the total cost is reasonable).

Maybe a good middle ground is something like the JetBrains model, where a 1-year subscription also comes with a permanent license for the version at the time of purchase, so you can at least open your old projects.

I'd argue "yes" and "no" on this at the same time...

With VRML, it was designed so that - like HTML - anyone could easily create 3D objects and "worlds" using a simple markup syntax that was very similar to HTML (IIRC, both are subsets of SGML?).

It was easy to create something really quickly that could be interacted with.

These tools, while they simplify the creation part (somewhat), are more akin to today's "web site builder" systems vs raw HTML in an editor.

What you get out of them, though, isn't anything like HTML - if you are lucky, you'll get a standard file format or maybe JSON - but then what do you do with that? Furthermore, it isn't likely very human readable or editable.

WebGL - and libraries like three.js built on top - are all well and good, and allow for much easier access for 3D graphics work - but neither are anything like VRML.

There are some VRML-like tools out there - one that comes to mind is Google's A-Frame:

https://aframe.io/docs/0.9.0/introduction/

So some stuff like the old-school VRML is out there, and VRML had it's issues, which is part of why it didn't survive (the other part being that it was too early for the available PC hardware - unless you happened to own an SGI workstation at the time).

It's one of those pieces of "pioneering" technology that came too early for the tech - but gave us a glimpse of what might be possible in the future (much like the first "wave" of virtual reality hardware technology).

And BTW, a developer focusing on flashy new features instead of stability and bug fixes is something that is independent of the monetization scheme. If the users want stability and bug fixes while the developer provides only new broken stuff, then the developer is simply not listening to their users which can happen (and often happens) regardless of if the software is paid once or subscribed to.

TBH I think you are looking things a bit too much from the developer's side.

FWIW i do not mind 1-year subscriptions with a permanent license, although i'd prefer the permanent license to be for the end of the year, not the start (especially if there is a chance that the files you worked on with the last version wont work with the earlier version). It is essentially "buy once, get free upgrades for a year". Assuming of course the other things i mention (offline installer, no authentication needed, etc) still apply.