At most I’ve done about 50% of my paid work on Nuendo during a time period of about 6 months. That’s over years and years of working with the most amount of time spent on Pro Tools. Still, even knowing that at this point I’m most likely to do at least 80% of my work in Pro Tools I just bought another dongle. It’s $35. 35. That’s pretty much “nothing”.
So I have to say that I think your objection above about finding a dongle “in the middle of Asia” is just… not seeing the larger picture. If you’re doing this for a living you can average out those $35 over the amount of time one dongle lasts you. I’m still on my first.
Ok, so if you’re using a laptop for example what you can do is print out an “items list” on a piece of paper and just put that on the back of your laptop or inside your laptop back or whatever. When you leave the studio you just read item by item off the list and make sure you seem them all in the bag.
I too have forgotten dongles, mostly my iLok, but I can count the amount of times on my one hand. This is really a first-world problem that can be easily solved without ‘advanced’ technology.
I think having an option would be nice. I honestly don’t mind the option to be able to work without a dongle, but I also have no problem with dongles.