No, the problem is the software has an internal certificate that is about to expire.

This is exactly the sort of scenario where I do not feel bad at all tracking down an online crack that disables the certificate check.

That said, it is probably not in Microsoft's best interest for people to have a legitimate reason to discover how much easier life can be if you pirate software.

As described, the licensing system will fail you into readonly locally unless you subscribe Office Clippy 365, buy Office 2024, apply Office 2021 updates, or (not listed) apply third-party licensing cracks for Office 2019.

Presumably we’ll know soon if network firewalling the licensing server helps, but I expect it’ll just delay the intentional failure by a few months at best.