And you have every right to your feelings. I would point out that by that happening, though, a lot of people - many of whom you know and I suspect care about, who use and love DS (as well as those who support themselves and their families at that company), would be hurt.
Not trying to be argumentative or offensive, just rather blunt today for a lot of other reasons - but in my age and bitterness things like that have gotten very simple for me. Those who choose to back a company who has behaved the way Daz3D does know what they are getting in to - or at least should. It would be unfortunate for them to lose access to tools, but there are lots of free 3D tools, some very feature rich
*cough*Blender*cough*, available in the world. I would also point out, DS was not always free - and what was done when they went to 4.0 was a punch in the face to everyone who essentially laid out hundreds of dollars to buy in to a beta version (at the time the full version with content tools was twice the cost of Poser Pro) that was given away free once all of the bugs were fixed. While I did not buy in to the beta release of 4.0, I did Pay for DS 3.0 advanced and a lot of plugins that were then broken in 4.0 and I was expected to buy the plugins again (those that were updated that is). Also there was the whole Carrara 8 fiasco (another software I paid for that did not function as advertised). Most of its selling features did not work on 64 bit system, and tech support essentially refused to honor the 30 day refund policy for those features constantly insisting those of us who purchased wait for fixes...then no fixes but a paid upgrade cost for 8.5 "because we added genesis support". Just more outright underhanded and unethical conduct from Daz3D staff and executives. Those who know me more will know - this isn't even the tip of the iceberg of my gripes with Daz3D, and I could go on for pages. I had also given them countless chances to set things right and instead their admins, executives, and many of their closest vendors have vilified me personally, openly on other forums, and behind the scenes in communications with brokerages and their admins, websites, and persons they were seeking to recruit.
So this latest round of wasting independent artists time, not just the Hivewire team, but I will throw a nod out to Vanishing Point's administrator John and all of his artists, Dark seal, So many from Content Paradise, and any others who went through this) by
"recruiting" them, making them expend time and resources changing products and promos for their standards, only to back out a week, 10 days, or a month later, just adds to the public knowledge-base of why Daz3D deserves to go under. Any company that behaves this way deserves to go out of business. It also makes me wonder what the true reasons and end game here is (I have suspicions aplenty) - but make no mistake, I believe it was planned from the start based on my own first hand knowledge of Daz3D and dealings I have had with them.
I would also point out, there are many who would be hurt by the demise of Poser, yet it has not affected the negativity toward poser spewed in so many places, including the official Poser forums, by some of DS's staunchest supporters. Even claims time and again that Poser is already dead or obsolete. I made my peace with it already - If Poser ceases to be (which seems doubtful) I will continue to use the versions I have and the content I have and start focusing more on Lightwave (which I really should do anyway given what I invested in it).
I didn't say all of this initially because I wasn't looking for a fight or trying to add fuel to the fire, and also because much of it has been said before. It needs to be said though. Those who take offense at my attitude given these factually provable events, I would suggest really need to do some soul searching and look to the real root of the problem, Daz3D's management and staff, and consider closely keeping themselves tied to that wagon.
I don't own a microwave but the convection oven is the next best thing aside from boiling water but then I have an electric carafe for that and it heats up water in about 2 minutes.
