Not everyone cares to use the Avid codec, so I think Steinberg made the right call to make it an add-on, and frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason why they did it as a paid add-on was some idiotic greedy reason from the overpaid CEO of Avid to stifle competition on the only other post DAW on the market. They have some sort of silly licensing agreement with Avid that even restricts where they can offer the download of the codec, so we don’t know the backstory of it. Doesn’t matter that Pro Tools or Black Magic support it, etc… – in fact Black Magic probably signed a license agreement a long time ago under difference circumstances, and Avid has become increasingly greedy. In fact AFAIK, Pro Tools and Cubendo are among the very few DAWs that support the Avid codec, so Avid will of course be very protective. And it’s only $30. If you’re a pro and need the codec, it’s not a big deal to just pay the $30 and be done. $30 is just a token payment and a lot of it probably goes to Avid anyway to help fund the golden parachutes of the lousy management there as they “retire” or get fired. My two bits.