Would you not do something if your business was nearly destroyed by piracy?
It’s not a big deal imo, I’m fine using a dongle knowing it prevents privacy, that is easy to accept in my mind - and that any other alternative protocols such as periodic online/cloud authorization are going to take resources and development and time to set up.
I’m sure Steinberg would love to not have piracy problem thus allowing them to not have to use dongle authentication, thus a allowing people to demo.