What about people who don't have (never have had, and never will have) their computer hooked up to the net? They are screwed...

Some people keep their computers off the net for security reasons. My father keeps one of his off the net so that he doesn't have to worry so much about viruses.

And no, he doesn't want to use Linux... And even if he did, ProTools isn't available for Linux.

Note: to be fair, he doesn't (to my knowledge) use Adobe programs on his studio computer.