[dayglored]

> Who cares about free? You can get licenses on Ebay for like $5, LTSC even (less frequent updates, no crap like Cortana, etc)

True, and often they work. But many of those eBay licenses are illegal, e.g. broken out of Volume License packs, etc. The end user runs a moderate risk that at some point they'll get caught.

[Still Thinking]

I assumed they were broken out of VLPs. But I wouldn’t call that ‘illegal’; they’re still legit licenses, just being used in an unapproved way.

[Still Thinking]

I think ‘gray market’ is probably a better description than illegal.