I think the major application for it is more along the lines of mobile devices in the near future (which is the next major market for the internet anyways--Google already stands to lose a ton if mobile internet begins picking up a greater percentage of search usage because they can't fit as many ads per page.)

Right now, I'm not disagreeing, because you generally consider the internet to run slower than desktop apps. It won't be long before that is no longer the case, and at that point, the system constraint will be stability and not speed. Google knows it has no direct control over fixing the current system constraint, so it's planning for the next constraint in order to maximize its marketability. It makes perfect sense from a business perspective--just because the general public isn't "ready" for it doesn't mean the best companies in the world shouldn't be. Would you have imagined 10 years ago that you would spend hours a day using social networking sites? The companies that did were able to take advantage of it. The companies that reacted to the market ended up like Zoints.