The purpose of copy protection, like the weak locks on our homes' doors, is to introduce enough friction to discourage casual theft. Dongles achieve this and attach at least some semblance of physical ownership to a digital good. Obviously those with enough determination will find ways around the system (not always though, 12 years uncompromised for Reason), but developers are betting that the majority won't put in the effort and will do the right thing by purchasing the tools they use. Most decent people understand that if everyone steals the content they love, there will be no more content to steal in the first place.I agree that dongles are a waste of time considering how easy the crackers remove the protection.
WRAPWARDEN/iLOK, FUSiON/iLOK, METAFORTRESS all just fun and games for the crackers.
I would argue that sales would actually go up for legit licences if developers removed the Ilok.