I believe the price increases were due to nothing more sinister than inflation. There had not been a generalised price increase for well over a decade before that. Does any other form of goods you know have that stability of pricing for such long terms?

It really wouldn't of mattered how a lot of the things you have described were handled, some people would still have adverse reactions regardless to the implementations such as DS becoming free, Piracy protection, etc. When DS became free if they said anyone who purchased in the last 6 months will receive a full refund, people who were 6 months and 1 day would be pissed, no? In my experience even a company which is totally transparent, A Nobel prize winning communicator, entirely direct and forthright in every aspect will still have critics and detractors. If you have stuck with DAZ3D for 20 years they must be doing something right, no?

I have had posts deleted from the Daz Forum threads on 4.9 and for the sake of clarity of the thread I welcome the sweep throughs by the mods on those threads, as they were becoming bloated and unwieldly to the point of being useless as information resources.