It's not a "one-time deal". It's not even just every time you download something hidden behind validation, such as XP's "not a security patch" that is needed before your setting to not Autorun USB storage devices is respected.
It's the presence of deliberately hostile code within a product, kept from "going off" by the same quality code that has to be fixed so often that we're obliged to swallow updates every month.
What MS does today, evey vendor will do tomorrow, and that's why activation was so significant. The slippery slope of vendor-user relations dropped a level once it became standard practice to embed user-hostile code in products.
Clealy there are trust issues with vendors who are prepared to do this, and the trust surface becomes larger and harder to patrol.
Once it was; I get the use of a particular product for life, you get your one-off payment, and we need never deal with or trust each other again.
Now I have to trust you to squirt new code into my systems automatically, unless I'm prepared to devote substantial attention to what each patch does, and run the risk of pre-patch exploits. I also have to watch what you do and compare that to what you promised you'd do, and respond to tidal changes in vendor trustworthiness.
Open Source doesn't fix this by giving me acres of source code to read, by the way. If it addresses the problem, it's by removing the financial incentive for vendors to hold back on value.
Do you remember when activation appeared in XP, and we were assured that when Microsoft lose financial interest in old products, they will be left to work without activation?
Well, watch what happens with discontinued products like MS Money, when Microsoft announces activation will no longer be possible after a certain date. Will these products then install without activation, or will they die as soon as they need to be "just" re-installed?
Do a Google( activation Kafka cquirke ) for a take on the absurdity of activation politics.
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