I only upgrade occasionally, the time I have to create images is pretty limiited.  The last few upgrades I did required me to go rediscover all my runtimes (I’ve been a user since Poser 2), hence my reluctance.

Random phone homes that have the potential to disrupt the user’s work flow are not a good thing.  Vendors shouldn’t expect users to keep connected to the internet in these days of ransomware, etc,

I generally connect when I start Poser ( and Vue )  but disconnect  after that. I think it’s reasonable for a program to check during start up.