[Duardo]

Because I don't like having my ability to use the product I paid for tied to a little device that is easily lost or stolen, can fail (all active electronic devices can fail),

I've run various software programs and plugins for well over a decade using various types of copy protection, including various types of dongles, and the biggest problems I've had have been related to hard drive failures. I've had one problem relating to a dongle and the license was easily replaced.

And I've never lost one, or had one stolen...I can see how theft can happen, but I have a hard time imagining how someone could just up and lose something so valuable...but if they do, I don't see how the software or dongle manufacturer could be to blame.

costs extra (companies used to GIVE you the dongle - now you have to buy it),

Dongles were never free...one may have been included with the software you were buying, sure, but you were still paying for it. Nowdays I get a little annoyed when I purchase a product that comes with an iLok, specifically, as I have so many of them already...

and lends itself to insane protection schemes such as that currently used by Waves that can result in extreme cases of having to pay for re-registering your new product if you blow the initial installation - paying a second time.

I'm not aware of any such scheme...as far as Waves is concerned, you're covered for all upgrades for a year after you register your software, and at worst after that you'd have to pay an upgrade fee, which is not nearly as much as buying the product again...but maybe there's a particular situation I'm not aware of?

Because if your laptop with your dongle gets stolen most companies will not re-authorize your software on a new dongle and system because "there's already one copy in use".

Well, sure, that seems reasonable to me...especially as it may well be that the person who stole your laptop knows exactly what they were stealing.

Even so, though, how is the dongle to blame? I would say that depends more on the software vendor than the fact that their software is authorized to a dongle. There are certainly companies who use dongles for protection who will give you new authorizations if your dongle gets stolen, and there are certainly those who don't use them who won't give you new authorizations if the laptop your software is on is stolen. I'd imagine that companies that aren't helpful in those situations that use dongles still wouldn't be helpful in those situations if they stopped using dongles tomorrow.

Because if something happens and the company does actually accept that you have a legitimate problem and agrees to help you're still out of business for several days instead of just being able to re-install on a new system.

That also doesn't relate specifically to dongles as well...it could be the same with some other sort of authorization, and if you use a dongle you may well be up and running the same day if you have a spare dongle around. Again, it depends more on your specific issue and software manufacturers that are involved.

Are you telling me that if I put a license for a software program on a dongle, and that dongle breaks, that I can't return the broken dongle to the software maker (to prove that it broke and that I didn't give it to someone else), and then just buy a new dongle device to put the license on (which I assume would cost under $50)?

Typically no, that's not a problem...if the dongle breaks you can usually send the dongle to the manufacturer of the dongle (rather than of the software) who can verify that those licenses are valid.

I remember in the '50s and '60s the southern white supremacists said we'd never get rid of the Jim Crow laws.

Same exact thing.

Please, please tell me that you did not just compare dongles to Jim Crow laws?

You can't even open a pro tools session without an ilok.
Which is totally stupid because you can't run PT without the hardware, anyway.

First off, you can open up a Pro Tools session (LE, at least) without an iLok...you just can't run any third-party plugins in that session that do use an iLok for copy protection without an iLok.

And, regardless, why is that "stupid"? A huge part of the reason that Digidesign adopted the iLok was because of the number of people who were using cracked plugins on Mix systems...which had an entry price of about ten grand, and required that hardware to run...which just shows that even people who have the means are more than willing to spend money on what they have to, but if there's a way to steal stuff they will.

There isn't one dongle protected program that can't be replaced by a non-dongleized program of equal quality or a hardware device (in the case of Waves' X-Bass)

That depends entirely on your perception of what "equal quality" is. Way too subjective to make a blanket statement like that.