my suspicion is that the threshold level of a developer capable of doing the type of development that is required of second life (a graphics client, a networked server etc) using their tech stack (presumably something C++) is higher than web.
The inherent crappiness of the web is not due to the tech. It's due to the low barrier of entry.
Think this example is probably more from budget than dev skills. It’s perfectly possible to build reliable billing webapps, and there are 100k experienced devs who could do it.
Second Life obviously prioritised their core biz and product, which is the right thing to do.
my suspicion is that the threshold level of a developer capable of doing the type of development that is required of second life (a graphics client, a networked server etc) using their tech stack (presumably something C++) is higher than web.
The inherent crappiness of the web is not due to the tech. It's due to the low barrier of entry.