If you're a home user, I agree. But if you're a business, wouldn't this be a liability?

Liability would be to not purchase a license, not failing to activate it.

Only risk would be to not have suppport available.

You don’t get support on non-activated software.

That's my point. The question is which fraction of users/businesses actually ever ask for support? And as long as error can be replicated on an activated install, I guess they could still get support.

I knew a number of companies who were using a handful of RedHat servers and many more running CentOS and whenever they encountered issues on a CentOS system they would just replicate it on a RedHat one before asking for support and sending logs. Morally dubious but contractually OK.

You rarely get useful support from Microsoft anyway.

Can't remember what, but there will be functional limitations if you don't activate, even with a verified key.

I bought the darn thing, I want the full package