And that was my original point: it's not a problem exclusive to Borderlands 2's Golden Key chest. It's a problem with being dependent on a gatekeeper's key--and what happens when the gatekeeper can no longer give out valid keys? The use of cracks and similar user-based modifications would allow one to go around the gatekeeper when that moment comes (withstanding whether or not one could even play this game at that time, if technology rapidly develops and becomes some vastly different entity).Oh, for activation yeah I wouldn't be surprised.
But it's not just Steam games. It's anything with online activation. If the activation servers go down, no new copies can be activated without a crack.