To take hypothetical to the potential extremes…
Given that Cubase will not work unless it phones home to Steinberg servers every 30 days (or annually), let’s say that in 5 or 6 years time, Steinberg servers go offline for whatever reason. Are we left with no access to 6 years of work?
Do we now, from Cubase 12 have to acknowledge the possibility that one day, if Steinberg disappears, our work from the point of upgrade forward will be gone?
As you rightly point out, you are not dependent only on the physical USB-eLicenser but also on the availability of the eLicenser server, eLicenser Control Center, and so on. Even if you have a spare USB-eLicenser to replace a broken one, you cannot transfer your license to the new USB-eLicenser if that server is not available.
There are a number of options under consideration for how we might tackle this in the future. The intention is not to try to force our users to upgrade if they don’t want to (obviously our intention is to build updates that you want to upgrade to), so we will certainly make reasonable efforts to support our users on earlier versions, just as we always have.
Thanks for the clarification, it’s reassuring that you are considering these situations 
That is nice to hear. Thanks
Until yesterday the question would have been asked that way:
“So if I don’t use Cubase on my laptop for 5 weeks, then I’m going on a trip and while on the plane I decide to check a few things in Cubase, I realize I’ve forgotten the USB dongle …”
So don’t forget
old: to take the dongle with you
new: to start Cubase again before the trip.
In the end it is both. There is no problem from any if you at Steinberg renovate the copy protection, but you decide on certain things “we require”. The attitude to change the conditions of software usage after many years one-sided, filled with mistrust against the customers, is putting in an additional layer of complexity for us. You could have simply implemented a system of choice, but it is so important to leash the customer and implement control mechanisms out of distrust and what else. That is the point.
Except it’s a bit hard to forget something that is already connected to the laptop.
So if I have (let’s say) Nuendo, Dorico, HALion and maybe some other software that decides to implement the same scheme, I should spend some time opening each app before my trip 
“Better in every way”, eh?
We don’t want to make things more complex for you. We want to make them simpler.
I’ve already written at length in this thread about what “trust” means in the real world when it comes to software licensing (you can review those comments if you wish here). In short, it’s not about whether or not we as a company trusts an individual customer, it is about putting in place a system that balances the needs of the company to protect its and its customers investment in its products against the inconvenience of its paying customers.
We really are genuinely trying to get this balance right. Perhaps you can say how we could modify the system as we have proposed it – accepting that it will not involve the USB-eLicenser, and it will involve activation against an internet-based server – that would put the balance right from your perspective?
No, the way we intend it is that running Steinberg Activation Manager or indeed running any one of the products on your system that uses Steinberg Licensing will take the opportunity to refresh the activations for all activated products on your system in the background, so you shouldn’t need to run each application in turn to make sure that they are all activated.
That is the hole point of forcing license control every 30 day. The deactivation might have 30 days delay.
You have already received the answer that Steinberg will offer a solution for this very special situation.
I just wanted to say that even with the current license system, not everything has been solved to everyone’s satisfaction, and that you should think about certain eventualities yourself 
@dspreadbury I have nothing against the new system. But just to add my 2 cents, it seems that iLok offers a great variety of licensing options: a “fixed” license on the actual iLok key, a machine based license and/or cloud based license. Would it not be the perfect solution to the concerns raised on this thread?
Yes, the iLok method offers the flexibility I would like to see with Steinbergs license scheme. That would please everybody, I assume.
We decided against switching to iLok because we do not want our new system to have any reliance (even optional) on a hardware key element. We want to move towards purely digital products in the future, and removing the reliance on a hardware key is an important element of that. In particular, iLok Cloud’s reliance on being connected to the internet at all times, with the software authorisation failing if you become temporarily disconnected from the internet, means that iLok’s solution is actively unsuitable for the majority of our users, who do not want to use a hardware key.
It does rely on a hardware element though, your servers.
Yes, that is true – just as the current eLicenser system does.
If your servers go down I still have access to the license on my elicenser. I may not be able to update it, but I still have my license.
If your servers go down in the new license, I have no access to my work at all.
That is certainly not the intention. If your software is already activated on your computer, then it will run. The problematic case is that the software’s offline allowance period has expired, and in a hypothetical situation where our servers are not available or, much more likely, you are unable to connect to the internet for some reason, and you then cannot run the software because it cannot obtain a renewed activation.
I have already said in this thread, in fact not even an hour ago, that we acknowledge this as a legitimate concern and we will come up with a solution.
My concern is the possibility of your servers going offline and losing access to everything from Cubase 12 onwards. Be that in a years time, or 5 years time.
I understand that concern, but I’m not sure there’s anything I can say that would reassure you. The best predictor of what tomorrow will look like is what today looks like. We have been here for 37 years already, and we are not going anywhere.