It was still like that up until Windows 8, at least.
Back in the days of Dinosaurs and AOL CDs, you could just go to Best Buy and buy a CD with the Windows software and a key was printed on a scratch-off panel.
You could even just buy a key electronically from some grey market websites.
swelter_spark@reddthat.com 14 hours ago
artyom@piefed.social 14 hours ago
Right, well, its not 2003 anymore
isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
What’s your point? Is it now somehow no longer doable to purchase product keys in store due to some higher decree?
JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Because it doesn’t prevent piracy. Are you dense ?
isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
Why yes, our bodies, and our brains, are designed to be as dense as possible to save on energy! This is why our brains’ gray matter has a lot of crevices so it can fold onto itself.
You can prevent piracy using a stronger keygen algorithm and online activation.
Valve sells product keys all the time, you don’t hear about them having a keygen problem. People just bypass the authentication altogether and simply torrent the software, which is something people still do with Windows 11.