No sarcasm. Thanks for asking (no sarcasm, again).
You asked the right questions, IMO, and I think they are self evident.
> do they fill the exact same space?
No.
> is Blender adopted by different types of companies?
Yes.
A company or institution that has money to burn will opt for more "professional" suites (Maya, Microsoft, ...). Smaller entities will use the cheaper alternatives (Blender, Linux, ...).
If you had multiple shows in production, I would expect that standards be set to use the same platforms and versions across the board.
If the company is more than a boutique shop, I would expect them to have a somewhat competent CTO to manage this kind of problem - one that isn't specific to Blender, even!
Also, if the company is more than a boutique shop, I would hope it would be at a level and budget that the Python performance bottlenecks would be well addressed with competent internal pipeline and production engineering teams.
But then again, if the company is more than a boutique shop, they would just pay for the Maya licensing. :-)
Small timers, boutique shops, and humble folks like me just try to get by with the tools we can afford.
On a related note, though: I built a Blender plugin with version 2.93 and recently learned it still works fine on Blender 4. The "constantly changing API" isn't the beast some claim it is.
> constantly changing API that doesn’t allow for the extensibility
You pick a (stable) version, and use that API. It doesn't change if you don't. If it truly is a _major_ project, then constantly "upgrading" to the latest release is a big no-no (or should be)!
And these "most people" who are scared of a Python API? Weak! It should have been a low level C API! ;-)
Blender is the go-to for struggling artists/developers, and industry outsiders, like me. I'm stuck at Blender 2.93.18 because I don't have the budget for better hardware, let alone a Maya license! However, even that version of Blender still gets it done for me.
And also, how can you say Blender is not battle-proven? I mean, the big studios use Maya like fortune 500 companies use Microsoft Windows - doesn't mean Linux isn't battle proven.
I hosted Canvas Clash in Firefox on Windows 10, with myself, on a Samsung phone, and two AIs.
Trivia games are great for bars - finding/creating quality trivia content, and lots of it, may be the greater challenge.
It would be especially saleable if the UI theme can be customized to the establishment - even just a custom background. The market would be for smaller, independent (non-chain) places that won't pay for, or have access to, the more expensive companies that provide this kind of application to bars.
Nice. The game I was hosting kept dying with "Oh no, Something went wrong :(". However, I like the concept. These are good for personal social gatherings, but has great potential for more public places, too (like pubs/bars).
I know what the acronym AGI is, and how that acronym can mean whatever is convenient for that bunch of autistic "smart" internet people (hence, the "whatever that means" part).
I would add that the path that AI is going down right now isn't really focused on true AGI (whatever that is), but only the metric set by those who would profit the most by being able to make that claim.