Wholeheartedly agree with you, but I want to check my own understanding, which is: iLok became this weird monopoly because it let all the makers of actual music software stop doing all this weird shit, right? Like hiding registration details on your computer, making hardware dongles, etc.

Back in the ... 1990s, I think? It was like Cubase had their dongle, Studio Vision had... I forget, but something... but eventually they just mostly all went iLok. I dabble in music computer stuff for fun, and I feel like outside of Linux, it has been 15 years or so that it is basically just de facto all-iLok. Even though I am buying from like 10 or more companies.

I feel like we are now to the "inevitable result" part of any company gaining that kind of monopoly.