I don't think it's an intentional scam. I what actually happened is that the ~2 people who made Zas released the software then a) immediately burned out or b) h

I don't think it's an intentional scam. I what actually happened is that the ~2 people who made Zas released the software then a) immediately burned out or b) had family/financial/health issues. So they stopped updating. Then once people started getting angry, they got even more overwhelmed and just dropped off the face of the Earth. Pretty sure that kind of thing happens with a lot of games and Kickstarters. Think No Man's Sky, but Hello Games just disappears instead going back and actually redeeming the game with free updates. Still a half-finished product, still unfortunate, still a waste of money, and it's something you should not do if you release a paid half-finished product. But I can't imagine anyone saying "let's spend 12 months making a half-decent IDE, then release it to grift out people who actually buy paid IDEs". There are way better ways, legitimate and illegitimate, to make money.