Well, maybe 20 years was too far of a shot. But I assume you're associated with the Irrlicht game engine, so I assume that when you write "is WebGL the future?", you don't mean "will it be useful at all?" or "will some silly casual games be possible in WebGL?", but whether it will be a legitimate gaming platform, capable of competing with desktop gaming (which is where Irrlicht competence lays, afaik).
And to that I say firmly: no.
I like the demos you've linked to (and I've seen them before), no doubt they're quite impressive, considering the constraints of the browser environment.
But when I put them in context of what one could run on a computer natively, these demos remind me of Quake I. Sorry.
And BTW, I really hate to put you down like this. I have dreams of my own of one day writing an MMO game, that would mostly be handled by a server and the client would run in a browser. Perhaps the clue is not BF3-level graphics, but something "decent" on the graphical side and a really cool world and mechanics within the game.
I'm just a little frustrated at how inefficient all this web stuff still is. Imagine even your own demos - rather simple graphics by native standards - but with much larger world and many more characters. It would grind to a halt even on a mid-range PC, not to mention an iPad or a cheap laptop.
Still, I really wish that you create a plug-and-play graphics engine for web game developers, that would allow people like me to fulfill their fantasies. :) Wish you all the best!
And to that I say firmly: no.
I like the demos you've linked to (and I've seen them before), no doubt they're quite impressive, considering the constraints of the browser environment.
But when I put them in context of what one could run on a computer natively, these demos remind me of Quake I. Sorry.