I was really surprised the first monetization of madVR was as part of a hardware project.
It would be so cheap to release a "pro" version of madVR and hardware projects, especially those involving cutting edge compute, are expensive and hard to deliver (QA, warehouses, etc.). There would be some support costs, but the per-user costs would be so much lower with a pure software business model.
madVR seems so perfect for a pure software model too, given how many people have GPUs already. An Envy is a very niche market even compared to those with 3090s/Titans/6900XTs.
There is probably something I am missing.