And that seems to be the way things seem to be going -- at least if you want things to operate in a way that is consistent with how endusers expect things to work with everything "on the cloud." Sort'a funny how the group of people who were quick to say "mainframe is dead" with the advent of relatively powerful PCs, seem to be the same type of people who say standalone PCs are of a bygone era that everything should be on "the cloud."
Back in the 1980s I used to joke about a scheme where one could make software very affordable by using model of broadcast TV. You could get software "for free" just like network TV -- though you're apt to periodically be interrupted by commercial breaks (the adverts being a scheme by which software publishers could get income by selling compute cycles). You can opt for "partially sponsored" mode, combined with "honor system" (aka "PBS mode") where you're able to get and use the software without the frequent interrupts -- though there would be specific times of year where it goes into "pledge break" mode where they ask for donations to keep things working (and at the same time you're made to feel guilty for not contributing).
Another joke proposal I used to tell folks is using a per-usage model based on the "A/B/C/D/E ticket system" that was used at Disneyland at the time. A nominal "entry fee" would be charged for each access -- but will be generally low enough that it probably wouldn't raise much objection. At the level beyond the very basic of service, you'd have the "A ticket" items which would be the least complex of functionality that isn't covered in the base entry fee. As the greater complexity of the tasks go, the higher level "ticket" needs to be utilized -- where the "E ticket" represent some of the more powerful and advanced features.

>The best will be to buy a dumb terminal and connect to a Redmond based server. MS can charge your online time and spy on your data directly.