"Again we have a choice - to a more modern platform with more opportunity for a rapidly-evolving set of users for whom the Web and anytime access are a given, and for whom nearly all their time is spent in the browser. Making the leap as a developer to a lesser-known path may involve some risk, but unlike that time at the beginning of the last decade, you don't need the overwhelming majority of a small market base to upgrade and get to your product. Most of those online are already there - and they want your app." - Louis Gray

In the US, if we can't get carriers to move forward on increasing bandwidth, large portions of people cannot live like you (which you did mention). Such as me. I don't see it changing anytime soon or at the scale necessary. Also there are security consequences for storing all your data online. Who knows when someone's going to manage to get access to some financial data and order a laptop? I say this as someone who loves the web, but I can't do it. I'd need a vastly faster connection (primarily upstream, which is often limited significantly) to make this a reality. - OCoG of FF, Jimminy

Jimminy, no doubt there is always a tradeoff. The entire Snowden/NSA discussion is a big mess right now and I don't think anybody feels better about that - which is making a lot of people even more skittish about the Cloud. Assuming fast broadband constantly is not a reality in many places. Offline apps support is critical. But I see this trend being real, and what we're able to do today on the Web is tremendous compared to where we were 5 or 10 or 15 years ago, and progress doesn't seem to be slowing down. - Louis Gray

I forgot I changed my name. - OCoG of FF, Jimminy

Louis, I agree with you, just not the time scale. Maybe 10-20 years from now, but I don't think the switching point is as soon as you would hope. - OCoG of FF, Jimminy

Or, it will be sooner and those of us without constant access to unlimited and ultra fast connections will be left in the wake. - Johnny

Or neither. I don't think proprietary OS's are going away "soon", nor are we so lucky to have Steve Jobs around to bury them. But I think it makes more sense, where possible, to build for the Web instead of for Windows or Mac. Mobile is a whole different story, of course. - Louis Gray

The way to make this masses friendly is to get it out of the browser. Have a stand alone interface. Having my word processor in one tab and my Facebook in the other would make my boss uneasy. - Johnny

Johnny, Mozilla did that 3-4 years ago with Prism. Unfortunately, it's been dead for a few years. https://mozillalabs.com/en-US... - OCoG of FF, Jimminy