With the big update for FS24 the other day we got the ability (buggy though it may be) to access encrypted base-level aircraft. However, we still have no quick way to resync/reload in-sim so we’re only part way there.
If reload, something that used to take 10 seconds, now takes upwards of 10 minutes, we’re in trouble. It’s a thing that not just modders but devs use upwards of dozens or hundreds of times per session and this would be demotivating enough for modders and devs to debate if it’s worth it at all.
“But I don’t use mods”, you say.
If you use things like Duckworks, FBW, DA62X, G36 improvement, Denarq Beech 18, GotFriends Savage Carbon (or Grravel, Monster, Vertigo, etc), WT (before Asobo hired them), or any of hundreds of other improvement/realism mods, yes you do.
Crippling the ability of modders to work would likely mean most of those things would never have come to be.
This impacts us all.