We went round and round on the implementation. We appreciated that many people would prefer not to have a network connection, but in this time, most need network for other updates, installations, time keeping, and other internet dependent services. The challenge of course is once something is implemented, it’s not easy to change it else other users might lose their access.
We did add the evaluation option for new users so they can test it, not incur any costs, and get up and running immediately. Challenge of a USB system is that we would need ship those out, and people would have to wait a few days to get up and running… probably not a great model.
The good news is that other when our host’s server took a crap a couple of months ago, we haven’t had any complaints or significant issues with it working. I honestly live in fear of a situation where someone can’t brew because their system won’t work for some reason - that’s not cool and we want to do what we can to avoid that experience!