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Software development costs time and therefore money. Personally, I never understood the consumer sentiment that said, "It's just a little mobile app, it can't cost $49!"

Software piracy is much less of an issue today than it was in the 80s and 90s, but the real problem behind it - copy protection - is quite interesting.

What developers came up with during that time to obfuscate licensing mechanisms in such a way, that hacking effort and benefit were no longer in healthy proportion to each other, is really exciting.

The article by Andrew McFadden goes into detail about the Apple ][, and is one of the best low level reads of the last week.

Decide for yourself.