As an end user, I would prefer to live in a world where I don't have to wait for software to respond. If forced to, I would also continue to use software where I do have to wait. Your argument that economics will dictate the best solution and lead to a happy balance doesn't work. It will tend towards a borderline tolerable world, where your product only has to be better than the other guy's.

This is separate from the discussion about tradeoffs between flexible design patterns and low-level performance.