Why online resources are not free and ChromeOS will fail

Nowadays there seems to be a big push for the use of online resources to replace offline functionality. New operating systems like ChromesOS or Jolicloud are mostly web based, and more and more audio and video services are moving from downloads to streaming. On the surface it looks like this is a big win for freedom as you are much less dependent on your operating system or proprietary applications, all is in the browser. There is a big caveat however: this makes you overly dependent on your internet connection, and in a world that is more and more mobile this is a recipe for disaster.

An internet connection is expensive

The problem with many online services and applications is that they do not take into account the price of the connection. If you have to pay for an ADSL connection at home, then a 3G connection for your smartphone, then a Wimax connection (or another 3G connection, or a Boingo account) for your netbook or iPad you are looking at a frightening bill at the end of the month, even if these services are available. It is likely that many people will only afford an ADSL connection and end up "stuck at home" if they rely on online services for their application and entertainment. Streaming a video clip from YouTube may seem cheaper than purchasing the song, but it is probably not the case once the connection bill is factored in. It may look like a good idea to use picnic for editing and storing pictures, until you have to do it away from home. Initiatives like Google ChromeOS or Jolicloud may seems revolutionary, but I think they will only work for people who do not require to be mobile.

Going in the wrong direction


For years we have been evolving toward a computing experience that leveraged the internet. We assumed it was a great idea to have everything online, close by hand, only we failed to see that this reduced our physical mobility. We assumed that the internet would be ubiquitous and that we would get more and more bandwidth, and to some extend it is true: at home, on our desktops. The problem is that this is the decade of the netbook, the tablet and the smartphone and as far as mobile internet is concerned sufficient bandwidth for everybody  won't be available for years, if not decades. Current 3G networks struggle to provide barely adequate service because they are limited by available spectrum and technology. How will they fare if we all move to online streaming. What bandwidth is required to provide a fluid 480p YouTube or Hulu streaming experience to even 10% of the mobile subscribers on a wireless network? 3G won't do, 4G won't do, maybe 5G will do, but I doubt it. It will take at least 10 years to get there, if not 20, and we are only speaking about 480p,  the performance that a portable DVD player has been delivering for years. Web developers  assumed that we would get more and more bandwidth as the time passes, but users now want to access the net everywhere, meaning we get less bandwidth rather than more, and unreliable connections to boot. Most internet applications are now designed for ADSL and always on internet, but a lot of people are actually going the other way: lighter, more mobile machines, more infrequent connections, less bandwidth, less allowed transfer.

More and more laptops are sold but we are less mobile

More and more people purchase laptops or netbooks because they want to be mobile and take they computing infrastructure with them, but the increased dependence on our internet connection makes us less mobile. My wife has a nice Linux netbook she uses a lot at home, but whenever we get away from home she takes only her old Nintendo DS because most of the games she plays on the netbook are online Flash games and these don't work when the connection is lost. What does that says for the netbook mobility-wise? A failure! Who actually uses his or her netbook out of the house most of the time? Not many peopIe! Who uses his or her smartphone out of the house most of the time? Most people. In Japan mobile net access is overtaking fixed connections, soon the same will be true in the rest of the world. Soon tablets, smartphones and mini netbooks will be the way a lot of people use "computers".

Android will smoke ChromeOS

In the end I think that Android will crush Google's other operating system, ChromeOS because for the foreseeable future most people will still want to be able to take their applications, data, entertainment and games offline, or at least on a limited connection. That is something that Android is much better designed to do than Chrome. That's why streaming and Blu-ray will not destroy DVD sales for some time: impossible to rip the movie to a netbook or iPhone. That's why online games won't kill the Nintendo DS, why music streaming services won't kill iTunes. For these to take off much progress need to be make to ensure the resources are available offline since there won't be enough mobile bandwidth for all. All web applications and games should be cached. Any piece of music, video or web page that has been watched should be available for replay offline. It should be trivial to store online media or data for later consumption. Currently this is not the case and this would mean that browsers would have to be re-engineered, Flash would have to be completely re-engineered etc... Solutions like Google Gears or the HTML 5 specifications for online data don't go far enough as we do not only need to cache web data, we need to cache web functionality for offline use. Web applications and services needs to be designed for intermittent (not always on), low bandwidth mobile connections, not the monster ADSL many people have at home. What may happen is that smart developpers will create multiplatform offline applications using web technologies and tools such as appcelerator, but that will leave ChromeOS on the side.