I agree, people under-estimate the resources required to render typical web content, and also tend to forget how even on the high end devices that the web experience isn't particularly good.

Similarly there's also been an underestimation about the cost and nature of systems software, any one remember Oracle's 'Raw Iron' (http://www.infoworld.com/t/platforms/techs-all-time-top-25-f...).

At the same time, isn't it striking how users embrace mobile apps as opposed to paywalls on the web? I wonder how this OS would address this problem?