Well... I am not business expert but it's a tradeoff.

Crappy MODO ALREADY grosses them $X/month (maybe $100,000?), and costs some amount below that to maintain. Let's say 2-3 FTE which is about $500K/year. The hardware is probably 1/10th that, so forget it.
Replacing it with new software is going to cost at least several million over 2-3 years - maybe as much as $50M total (online videogames are expensive to develop) , and it has to be paid upfront. And you still have the same maintenance costs. So, in order for this to be a good investment for WOTC/Hasbro they have to be sure to recoup their investment by increasing the number of subscribers/players that pay.

You have to also consider the backlash if they "upgrade" and it bombs. (i.e, forums, obamacare).

Free versions or competitors probably cannot compete for serious MTGO players because their won't be the gambling/payoff aspect of it. And MTG is still the biggest and best CCG game around, and the online game synergies with the paper one.

On the postitive side, eventually technology will badly outstrip their software and they will have to replace it. They probably are already working on a new version, but maybe it's only a couple engineers with prototypes.

Except in baseball where if a game gets rained out after the 5th inning whoever is winning wins the game by the umpire's discretion.

I learned that life is a short fleeting mess, and everything you could ever accomplish will end up as trash, and I'm lost inside.

Welcome to adulthood.

Commentary like this makes me wonder why people bother living at all.

Lotus cobra a slightly better megrim

Neat effect and does enough to make you wanna try
But 95% of the time it's not that good

Megrim is a 3 mana enchantment that requires you to build around it.
Lotus cobra is a 2 power 2 drops that requires you to run fetches.

How is this even a thing?

Well... I am not business expert but it's a tradeoff.

Crappy MODO ALREADY grosses them $X/month (maybe $100,000?), and costs some amount below that to maintain. Let's say 2-3 FTE which is about $500K/year. The hardware is probably 1/10th that, so forget it.
Replacing it with new software is going to cost at least several million over 2-3 years - maybe as much as $50M total (online videogames are expensive to develop) , and it has to be paid upfront. And you still have the same maintenance costs. So, in order for this to be a good investment for WOTC/Hasbro they have to be sure to recoup their investment by increasing the number of subscribers/players that pay.

You have to also consider the backlash if they "upgrade" and it bombs. (i.e, forums, obamacare).

Free versions or competitors probably cannot compete for serious MTGO players because their won't be the gambling/payoff aspect of it. And MTG is still the biggest and best CCG game around, and the online game synergies with the paper one.

On the postitive side, eventually technology will badly outstrip their software and they will have to replace it. They probably are already working on a new version, but maybe it's only a couple engineers with prototypes.

Yet they have been working on a Beta for years which has probably cost them as much as if they had done it right?

There problem is that they look for people who are passionate about the game so they can pay them less in their tech group. Rather than look for people who are good at the job. I'm sure they have people good at their job, but I get the feeling their idea of the tech side is very backwards. They do their hiring by finding popular podcasts.

How long and how much money did the Beta cost vs some of these new ground up games? Hearthstone looks so much more amazing. If you made magic look like Hearthstone you would have something amazing, while if you made Hearthstone look like v3 or the Beta it would of never made it to its Beta.

I just learned that despite being one of the best cards ever printed, Lotus Cobra is almost impossible to convince people to run, especially as a four of. It's like black lotus on legs!

The problem is magic is not designed for computers. There's level of interaction and calculation that is far easier for human brains. Hearthstone is made by a video game company, and a very good one at that, for pc, and doesnt have any interaction in the sense of responding to things. Magic has a rule book as fat as a dictionary. Turning that into code is not a simple task. Obviously wotc doesn't care as much about mtgo as they do paper magic, but mtgo is a huge headache so I don't see that changing any time soon.