I suppose the other aspect is the gradual death of the white-box PC shop. The large OEMs have contracts to pay 9 cents per license. They'll never crack the in

I suppose the other aspect is the gradual death of the white-box PC shop. The large OEMs have contracts to pay 9 cents per license. They'll never crack the individual enthusiast building his own PC from Newegg parts and installing a hack, but he's small potatoes. But back in the day, there there was a fair chance your local midsize business, government, university, didn't necessarily buy from Dell or HP-- they bidded out a few hundred PCs to a local shop, which had both the motivation and technical knowledge to use the same license key on each one, and the scale where it could represent significant lost revenue. Introducing activation was probably a significant sabotage for them. Although I'd suspect the stick on license certificate was almost as big a deal in that regard.