>People may not care how or where their data is stored?
>My gut says it will be one long time yet before people ignore WHERE their data is stored.

Mine too. They may not care until the next scare. When they discover that their data are gone because the cleaning lady somewhere unplugged some unmanned equipment to plug in her vacuum cleaner, they'll come about.

>And isn't it clear that MS has a vested interest in applications being loaded fresh from the internet?... How many people are still using Office 97 (costing MS millions)?

As with other great ideas, it doesn't matter how smart the idea was, or what good may it do. If billing scheme isn't bringing clear advantage, it won't happen.

I think Tesla's remote power transfer was possible back then, and ever since. The only reason we don't have it is that nobody knows how to make sure nobody gets any of it for free. Fuel cells? Six years ago they started selling an alcohol fuel cell which could power your cellphone for a week with an equivalent of a double vodka. How come none of that appeared for our homes? Because anybody can make moonshine out of anything. They wouldn't have special alcohol vials to sell.

So now, after we've all bought Office about four times, and Windows any number of times (I've stopped counting), and we've about had enough of paying the same thing over and over every couple of years, the new model is that you don't buy anything, you get it all for free if you agree to pay a small monthly fee? And we are all naive squirrels, right?