@tomalmy - Thank you; this is the type of information I need to mitigate one of my two main concerns. I can forget the cloud storage concern for the moment.
The other concern remains - why must the software be limited to four computers … and how does that work? I will certainly need to use a newly-purchased scanner on more than four computers over the lifetime of the scanner. I now have 3 Macs in my home - two iMacs (for my wife and me) and a shared MacBook Air. My current S1500M scanner is, at various times, connected to any of these computers, depending on the task at hand. I have simply downloaded and installed the ScanSnap software on each of these computers. Before my elderly mother passed away last year, I frequently traveled to her home, taking the ScanSnap S1500M to connect to either my MacBook or a locally-available computer to scan her documents - various bills, financial statements, etc. Over a period of 5 years I scanned hundreds, maybe thousands of documents for her. Having these documents available to me was essential in handling her affairs as trustee and administrator for her estate. Over the years I may have used 5 or 6 different computers to scan all of these documents with the ScanSnap S1500M.
To carry this use case further - at some point I would replace some, and probably all, of the computers that were initially “licensed” to the scanner software. Can the license be transferred from the initial four computers to other computers? If so, how is this done? And how does this work if I want to sell the scanner or give it to a family member? Do I really even “own” the scanner, in the traditional sense? If not, that is not made clear in Fujitsu’s advertising.
It seems to me that scanner driver software should be simply available to the scanner, wherever I want to use it (within the advertised parameters - e.g., Windows, macOS), without a “hassle” factor. I don’t consider my use for the scanner to be an “edge” case - I’m simply the family-designated record-keeper who happens to own the only sheet-fed document scanner available. I paid a high price for the scanner (or would pay a high price for a new scanner) and don’t want to be unreasonably restricted in using it for what I consider “normal” use for this type of scanner.
Thanks again for you comments.