Andrew,
actually, no it's not about the Discus itself.
It's the sitelicens EULA…… a sitelic most often strictly means unlimited seats in one location, one company, as you very well know. You're not locked into this or anything else in this case. That's the point. That's what is generous.
The sitelicens is cut down to allmost half in price if dongle to the Discus itself. But the EULA goes for a separate dongle too. You pay around four-five full seats to get the unlimited sitelic if dongled to the Discus. Double that (approx)for an ordinary separate USB stick dongle. Even that is more than just ok. Not bad at all if doing it professionally, spread out at many locations, if you ask me. I don't think that you could use the free x-rite application in the same way (legally) even if you would pay for it….. so it kind of balancing things up in the end somehow. And… what is 990 € + sitelic 500€ for an unlimited workingtool, really? It's less than a 80-200/2.8 here or my little Leica M-28 lens (compare nicely to the Discus quality, by the way…). All these are workingtools. LongLifed.
Yes, not even one single seat is included with the Discus as you mentioned, the black version has one, though – and a hardcase but you pay for it since the price is higher. This part is really greedy. No doubt. Both could had been dongled with one free seat at least. The software would then be locked for any other probe. Again, if in need for a sitelic, the nice balance comes in. Regardless of what we think about the rest.
Of course, he/she has to recalibrate. But the question is how often would do so anyway on a laptop. Especially if having to edit a Retina profile to get it clean each time. If not a Retina IPS, the crappy viewangle on the "older" ones will kill the happiness over a calibrated screen anyway. That will be a larger variable for most users than the slow drifting of the backlight on a calibrated/profiled laptop….. Chasing that drift back and forth, day in and day, out is meaningless. Happy to at least be in the ballpark – or in the outer parts of it. In different locations, sportarenas or sitting in the hotelcorridor, one will bump the level up and down untill it feels normal to start editing/browsing. Counting the pushes on the button from max level downwards just to know where we are.
Of course he/she could be better off getting his own little probe and find a way to deal with the laptopscreen, spending all that time to find where he's got the sweetspot. Learn to handle the angle issues…. making some blackpointtargets for visual setting blackpoint by adjusting the angle…… and also deeply memorize differences between that little screen and a large wellcalibrated monitor at home. To be able to compensate in brain when out there in the field. Like it always has been done. It's an art in itself. Pulling in a laptopscreen well, most often takes *some level of fingertip feeling* and skills from loads of other screens. That goes very much for cal/profiling too. I even redo the Coloredges time after time untill my intuition is satisfied. The basic process is extremely easy to do for most people. But there are, many times, more to it than that……
If someone asks those questions, he's probably more focused on delivery and has less time for learning details. It's not that uncommon. "Just get it fixed for me so that I can browse my cards decently without that blue bottomhalf of the greyramp, that's all I want. I need it fixed yesterday. I don't know a shit about how". I do have a kind of respect for that simple wish too.
Get a probe if not having anyone nearby that can help. But people are having problem despite the easy to follow softare flow and well reviewed x-rites / spyders. How can that be?
This is a good discussion. Beacuse I can really understand why some hard working and stressed out people are asking for this simple service. Silly or not. That was what trigged my reaction to make some really short comments in the first place.
Just my two cents, like you americani use to say
Time for some wine.
Ciao.