I'm going to very carefully dip a toe in this thread and point out two things:
That's about all I'm going to mention in this thread, other than that I'm seriously impressed by our community, as always.
Thanks for the feedback @PGriffith. Sorry into goading for a response, it just seemed like the most appropriate point 
.
I understand how precarious explicitly stating a position is and why your response is reserved. Thank you for being the brave representative (scape goat 
) jumping into the fray.
Would it be possible for you to keep us up to date if you ever talk about this internally, even if it’s just a nod to say you’re doing so. Obviously, if you can share anything (without losing your job ) that would also be greatly appreciated. No obligation for you to do so, but I’d be interested in the outcomes of this discussion.
Finally, sorry to @abishur for hijacking the thread slightly, it was just an interesting debate (for me anyway ).
TBH, dev is often the last to know about planned changes for licensing.
This is probably getting more rare all the time, though last time I drove through a few states there were some significant areas with no coverage. Canada has really vast areas with zero cell coverage (you can drive all day with none at all up north and for significant stretches down south too).
This discussion interests me as the only option for mobile internet in these areas is mobile satellite, which is prohibitively expensive for the maker market. Fixed satellite isn't bad for a home, but a bit steep for an individual device.
Would lengthening the lease to a few days meet your needs, @abishur? I'm thinking if you could connect to renew license before ducking off grid for a day or so that might work well. It would certainly work well for many applications I can think of where most people have (satellite) internet at their home base, though nowhere else they frequent.
Anything IA provides free is a bonus. Maybe something between current free and mid $$$$ options might be a good fit for some applications. Talking to sales is always a good idea as I'm guessing this relates more to sales than dev 
Maybe wait for Elon Musk's Skynet.....I mean Starlink world-wide internet to be completed 
I'm signed up....
Maybe the feature request here is just adding the 2 hour (or perhaps 4 hour) "trial reset" to Maker? Would allow you to keep consistent in your messaging of using Maker for educational purposes while giving flexibility when dealing with a lack of internet access.
In addition to the reasons @abishur pointed out, there are those who cannot afford internet access (or limited data caps) but are still issued school laptops. Allowing them to continue to work offline with Maker edition would help keep the training consistent with the rest of their class (don't have to switch between full Ignition and Maker).
They say service up here in the north is expected in 2022. App shows one thin stripe of sky with coverage right now--looks like one satellite must pass over here so far. If it's 99% reliable it'll completely blow away the current alternatives in both speed and cost. I might have to preorder.
Cool, check out this Linus Tech Tips Video on it.
I know this is a really old thread but just stumbled on this same problem. I use Ignition at work and thought it would be really cool to use Ignition in my amateur rockery hobby to monitor my ground support and telemetry. Got a PLC with wireless connection back to my laptop and antennas all outfitted was going to be really cool! Then realized I have one license-lease time period to get everything set up at the house and head to the launch site out in the desert and hope my launch happens before my lease expires. Just some commentary on why this could be a problem. It's not unsolvable, I just have to now add some form of cellular or satellite backhaul from the launch site for the purpose of renewing my lease. Which seems kinda silly. Wait, I'm building out a whole Ignition ground control to launch an amateur rocket so the whole thing is kinda silly hahaha. I really enjoy this community.
Well otherwise you could do that project except instead of it being personal it could be commercial, and you could cheat the system and get a "free" licence. The leasing I assume allows IA the ability to apply some AI to somehow flag suspected commercial usage or not 
Maybe usage stats might also be sent back as well
I love my Starlink Mini. 
In this case, I would use the standard edition in a 2 hour trial. Since you're not needing it for continuous 24/7 use, just make sure you're not launching a rocket with only 5 minutes left on the trial.
Not looking to cheat the system, just found it interesting that I ran into the very same scenario as the the OP. A fun personal project that happens to be fielded where there is not readily available Internet. It's quite possible I will find a way to justify an Edge license (humans are such great rationalization machines!!) as the project gets more serious. Good to hear from you though, it's been a while.
The temptation is real! I do gave a cell modem that gets connection from the launch site which totally ruined my, "I need Starlink", excuse.
There is some telemetry attached to Maker but nobody is doing any scanning or anything for malicious usage, to my knowledge.
Adding, "Start the gateway and reset the trial" to my checklist. 
I found this topic because I just found out about the Maker version, and was wondering about the required internet connection. I have a ton of things I would love to use Ignition for at my house/farm, but even Starlink is not available for me as of the last time I checked in May. I do use my cell hotspot and connect it nearly daily for a few hours, but I am at work 12 hours out of the day. I don't know if a 24 or even 18 hour license would be possible or not but it would turn Maker into something that's unusable to relied upon. FWIW I live 10 minutes from a big named blue store and still cant get access! While I may a very niche case there does exist people with no internet availability.
You should check again. No waiting lists for starlink anywhere in North America now, and the international list is up to 105 countries:
(There's a couple odd gaps on the Virginia/W. Virginia line, and between Baltimore and DC. )
Soon there might be a gap in Latin America exactly the size of Brazil because we also can't have nice things