Poser are going to raise the price for their next version to over $1000 and drop the upgrade path because of some awesome evolutionary new features!!!, after all plenty of other software companies sell their software for that much and the next version is bound to have some new features. 

@ Keith and other speculators at what "Daz will do in the future"

Then we can remove that inflammatory statement from context just to add a bit more fuel to the rumour mill. Maybe the suggestion is true?

sigh You said you couldn't understand why a company would do that. I gave an example where a company did do that, and ultimately failed. It doesn't matter that Amazon sells at least some of their ebooks without DCM and Kindles can read other formats now, it's what their initial plan was. Sony tried it coming from the other direction, trying to use their reputation as an electronics manufacturer to start their own ebook store with sold in a propriety format as well that was, in the end, given up on and that business sold.

For years Studio Pro being free was a "temporary" sale thing, which gave every reason to believe that if they could get Poser out, they could return to making money by selling it. The fact that it didn't happen doesn't negate the fact that they tried. The fact that Genesis 3 moves to a more standard system for its rigging and mapping is perhaps a hint that DAZ has given up on that potential business model, which has been dragging along since 2012 when DS went free after it was clear Genesis alone wasn't pulling people to it enough to pay for it, and has stayed with the razor model (sell the razor cheap or even give it away, make people keep paying for the blades).

There's nothing actually that novel about G3: that style of rigging with the multiple bones has been in use in animation for ages--and, in fact, people created models like it for use in Poser years ago--dual quaternion skinning was developed in 2008, and UDIM mapping was created in 2002.[1] What is noteworthy is that DAZ has given up trying to use a purely proprietary technology in the new model and has gone to using widely-accepted industry standards. Now the ball is actually in Smith-Micro's court where it wasn't before because now they aren't forced into being tied into another company's technology that no one else was using.

1. I am somewhat amused by their marketing which is trying to sell all this as brand new, including the funny bit about Victoria 7 being "all quads and no tris!"...yeah okay. You mean like has been good modelling practice for years and years now? Including on already-available 3D figures?