@mkb @stellarskylark in some ways it's still the same, in others it changed a lot. The introduction of mesh made visuals a lot prettier but involve uploading from external applications instead of editing in-world like before, and creators are a lot more guarded, insist on no-mod and body vendor lock-ins are now a lot more common which is bad.

The technology stood still for a long time but recent changes in company administration made them start catching up so big changes are coming, starting with a big revamp of the rendering engine within the following year.

Despite its age and mismanagement it's still the most liberated virtual world around compared to the alternatives and would-be competitors. Only Neos really comes close but it's a VR-first platform.