I think like any new technology, there will be an extremely limited number of early-adopters, who figure things out, and then through social-osmosis, help others. It's not until at least the second generation that things really start to pick up. I suspect, had tablets and smart phones not really taken off in the last 5 years (which is a global miracle that should be further examined, although the devices are locked down pretty hard) this netbook program would probably have been all the more impressive. It's hard to look at a 7 year old, dumpy netbook and think it was a good idea, but at the time this was lightyears ahead of what was available to the general public, and put computers in a lot of families hands, that might not otherwise, have used one.