1. Dongles were very easy to defeat
Many commenters note that the hardware protection was almost trivial to bypass.
“A hardware dongle that just passes back a constant number?” – dehrmann
“The protection just needs to be sufficiently complex.” – cyanydeez
“I worked on some software that was used by telcos… you were probably hacking our dongles :)” – iamflimflam1
2. They were a staple of professional/industrial software, but a pain point
Dongles were common in CAD, DAW, and other high‑cost tools, yet they broke, were hard to replace, and forced support teams to chase hardware failures.
“Dongles were extremely widely used… for anything more advanced than consumer software you almost expect them.” – bri3d
“Physical dongle tends to break… replacement parts are no longer available.” – nsoonhui
“We had a dongle that would simply not be detected on our 80386.” – jbm
3. The industry is moving from dongles to SaaS/online licensing, sparking a debate
Some argue that subscriptions provide predictable revenue and better support, while others see them as an unnecessary cost.
“Just charge for support… the amount can be budgeted for.” – bruce511
“If you’re a business, it absolutely matches their model, provides predictability, and allows for great service.” – alkonaut
“I’m not sure if the dongle is still needed… I’d prefer a one‑off license.” – secretdreams
4. Cracking is still illegal and raises ethical questions
Even old protections fall under copyright law, and many commenters warn about the legal risks of reverse‑engineering.
“Defeating a copy protection measure is illegal, even if the copy protection measure is not copyrighted.” – direwolf20
“Cracking this dongle; wouldn’t this be a federal offence in the US?” – firecall
“The tool of choice back then was SoftICE… it would have been trivial to trap even bios level LPT access.” – rustyhancock (implying the ease of breaking the law)