I suspect you're aware, but leaving this for the hackernews crowd that might not be: Shadertoy was in fact made by sceners for sceners. Inigo Quilez is iq/Rgba[1] who released it as a tool for the scene to use[2] back in 2009

1. https://www.pouet.net/user.php?who=4063

2. https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=54180