Something not dissimilar happened to me in the late 80s regarding a Nintendo that Santa had brought us. My mom just said that “Santa leaves receipts for the parents”. I couldn’t argue with a logic at the time because I was a child.
Congrats on teaching your kid critical thinking, but I must say, sometimes kids just want to pretend. It’s a thing they do, and I personally miss the freedom. I had to do that as a child. Let them dream.
At the same time, I think it sounds like you’re doing a good job of planting the seeds of reason and logic that will flourish later.
When I was very little, and we put cookies out for Santa, my mom would always let me eat one because she “didn’t want Santa getting fat“.
My father happened to be on a diet at the same time. I figured it out when I was six.
From that point on, my “punishment” was to be the chief gift wrapper. I suppose the one good thing that came from that is, after many years of wrapping gifts for my whole family, I am now an expert at wrapping gifts.
Free and open source software and content has never been more prolific, nor has it ever been so widespread and successful. It’s not going anywhere.
Your personal exposure to it, and what you may see and hear of it can fluctuate and vary, depending on where you’re looking who you’re listening to. It can also be affected by marketing pushes from for-profit companies. That doesn’t mean there’s any less of it or that it’s somehow dying.
There had never been a time when free and open source of software and content has been so prolific, successful, and popular. It will only get more so moving forward. And while there are certainly those who would work against it, I doubt there is much to fear about it going away.
Technically, it is not legal. However, there’s no way to either prove it, nor is there any recourse against it.