How to protect an application from piracy?

Question

Mobile development

What methods are there to protect an application from piracy? I don’t want to reinvent my wheel, I think there are already ready-made solutions. There is a certain windows application, there is an idea to distribute it, but protection is needed for this. There is no way to allow decompilation.
A variant using HWID (Hardware Identification) is desirable, i.e. at startup, the user buys the application and its HWID is sent to the server in the database. The next time the application is launched, it checks against this database and checks if the computer's HWID is in the database. I think that's a pretty good defense.

Answer 1

This is bad defense. The user will want to run an honestly purchased program on his laptop or change the viduhu and everyone has arrived.
I advise you not to bother, any protection will be hacked, as an option, online key authentication is suitable. If you see that a lot of different computers work from one key, just ban it.
At the moment, some manufacturers even upload cracks to their programs on torrents to popularize it. :)

Answer 2

If the program becomes popular or is already popular, then it will be hacked anyway. If it’s niche enough, then any modern tread will suffice.
It's impossible. They break anyway. It's about the cost of hacking. In the case of a niche program, it's usually cheaper to buy than to look for someone who will break modern security and charge n-th amount of money for their work.
HwID will not save. He is not self-sufficient. Protection is also needed for this method in the form of a protector, otherwise it will be easy to remove even for a beginner cracker.
In general, it's the 21st century. Protections are morally obsolete already, you need to act by the method of "causing the user to want to buy."

Answer 3

Mathematics.
Well, or to be clear - the price. Those who buy must pay for themselves, and "for that guy." Take M$ as an example.

Answer 4

We go to hosts and prescribe any other request address for your application, and from this address we answer it with what it wants to receive. The shield and sword problem.