Of course the value of debate is never to be underestimated even when there is no clear winner or a right or wrong side. Sometimes discussion can bring out new perspectives or possibilities that were not obvious before some detailed pro's and cons were put forward from both sides of the equation. And I would never be one to discourage active debate or the expression of opposing viewpoint to my own.

And you're definitely right, It's a valuable exercise for a vendor to see through the eyes of their customers and there definitely is a lot to be learned from doing so. One thing on that that I found a bit of a strange paradox as a vendor. Is when working on a product it's easy to get into a mode of thinking that I will make something that the customers will want and in turn will sell well, so after lots of research and market assessment a project is started. After a lot work when launched it flops hard. The paradox is that it's often not what you anticipate or research tells you will sell well. Usually if a vendor instead creates something that they want and enjoy themselves the passion will shine through and customers will also see that in the product. So in turn most successful PA are not just sellers they are also Daz Studio users and also customers in their own right. Actually having a similar eye to issues as customers, more so than many seem to think. And at the end of the day what both parties want is very similar "a strong platform for our passion,"

One thing to note with Piracy and how vendors think about it is that it's not sheerly a monetary thing. A lot of the frustration is in seeing something that you worked so hard on stolen so easily and distributed with lack of regard to the your wishes. A little like seeing a bit of artwork of yours being used on an outrightly racist website. What do you lose from that monetary wise, would it concern you if that happened to you? How would you feel if you contacted the website and asked them to remove it, as it was being used without your consent, and you were just ignored and laughed at and to rub salt into the wound you were told by others "well you just need to accept it". So it's not only a monetary issue. And it's also not a win or lose scenario with piracy. It's about taking reasonable steps to provide a reasonable level of protection even if some see it as only a speed bump ,it will still impact casual piracy of Daz connect products. Daz script files have been encrypted for a long time? Did it ever impact your usage of them that you noticed? Have you heard anyone complain about it?

As far as dumbing down the program base I do see a bit of conflict in how people say, I prefer to manage my own database of content in the OS. But you know what they usually complain about the most? "how vendors put things in their products into stupid folder structures." You think this would be giving them what they want right ;) In my opinion it's not a case of dumbing down, it's an attempt at easing the entry barriers for new users and providing an inline solution to manage content. Many users have been involved for years and what seems like basic knowledge for them is often a steep learning curve for a new user. These programs have been growing in complexity year after year and when faced with incremental change, it's not a huge thing in itself. But for a new user it has become a steeper and steeper barrier to actually using these programs to do what they're intended to do, create art. Most consumers these days have grown used to apps where you click download then you get an icon and you click that and you're off and running. Juggling file structures into a foreign set up of nested folders is beginning to seem antiquated and to many a frustrating opening the door process. WIth my store at Renderosity over 90% off customers that contacted me over the years had one issue. How do I install this? A good content platform developer should recognise this as a significant issue and act to mitigate it. Really at the end of the day, what most people are seeing is their years of building a personal content management system could be becoming redundant, but really is that what this hobby is really about? I can see though the thought of this could be quite daunting and frustrating to many who have been doing if for years with 100's of gigs of content. Though many who do attempt this "New way" of doing things will in time see more benefits than negatives from the process IMO. These are all issues that have also been discussed with Daz3D by the vendors.

Any files that you save yourself will be entirely editable in Notepad. Some PA created content may not be in the future.

Congrats on your lottery wins too :D Some people seem to have all the luck!