Support

Would that make any sense at all? The Download ID would still be stored as plain text and transferred in the HTML stream as plain text. One would simply have to show the page's source to recover it.

What needs be done is to allow you to create additional Download IDs that you can delete at will, allowing you to have one Download ID per client. This is in my to-do list. I simply didn't have time to implement that yet :(

Well, there are many ways to get a free ride and abusing the Download ID is the less harmful one. Plus, if they ever require support they will still have to pay (and no other devs or users are going to help them with Pro features on the Joomla! forum). The thing is, I'm not even trying to make the software impossible to use if you're not a subscriber, by conscious choice.

The idea behind this is simple: if someone is an honest person, he'll pay. Most likely he'll do so not because of the software he buys (he could get it legally from a friend who's a subscriber), but because a. he gets awesome support and b. it's the only way to give me incentive to keep on creating the software. This person is who I care about: it's my customer, user and friend. My undivided attention belongs to him and all I do is because of him and for him (or her - don't think I'm a sexist or something).

On the other hand, we have sociopath leeches who care neither about support (they are incapable of following advice) nor about the future of they software they use. They are narrow-minded, shortsighted fools that I despise and won't bother with. Spending energy to stop them is pointless. In the process, the only one who will be harmed is the legitimate user who I care about. So, I just ignore the leeches. As simple as that ;)