Some would say, if you already have a legal, paid-for license to run Windows on a given PC, and you merely want a slightly different version which is older and doesn't add any extra features, that's a lesser form of piracy.
It's using a legit copy of windows and performing a legit activation, no exploits or anything. To call it piracy is the same as me telling you my pin and calling you a hacker when you login to my account, no? Microsoft could fix it, but they don't.
I genuinely wonder why they haven't. Those activation githubs have been around for what feels like forever at this point, and you just activate copies of Windows acquired from Microsoft for free, and they just... don't seem to care?
I have no direct knowledge, but my best guess is that they have significant legit customers using these as an alternative to Microsoft's own Key Management Services. Historically, some stuff like this has even turned out to be used by the company themselves (e.g. a few Steam/GOG releases have been found to use old warez scene cracks, official arcade emulators using bootleg sets from MAME, etc.).
Well, that activation was entirely offline, wasn't it? With the tech at the time, would it really be possible to stop multiple activations? Windows 11 now requires you to log in using email and that you have internet, so they could easily pull the plug on the MAS scripts. Yet they don't.
Why would they be wireless? For a device that stays in one position on my desk all the time that's utterly pointless. There are only downsides - having to charge it, signal issues, potentially lower security.
And you can have the same for a similar price in the States. The US cellular market is quite good. Have a look at Canada if you want to see what a cartel looks like.
Last time I was in the US it was pretty bad, I'm not sure comparing to the worst is fair but compared to Europe it's not so great - at the time I had T-Mobile but they differentiated different states etc as they may need roaming domestically - you're just not allowed to do that here
You could call that a feature making payments easier for customers! All 3DS does is protect the banks by inconveniencing consumers since banks are responsible for fraud.
I believe they pass on the risk to merchants now. If you let fraud through, $30 per incident or whatever. So typically things like 3DS are turned on because that cost got too high, and the banks assure you that it will fix everything.
