I think a lot of it started because of one of the better intended projects — the One Laptop Per Child movement that tried to give laptops to kids in poor countries. A key premise was that a laptop could be cheaper than all of the textbooks normally required, so the whole thing was really saving money.

But envy is one of the most powerful forces in politics, even when it doesn't make sense. So the idea that children in Namibia were getting laptops, while kids in Virginia weren't — even though it was a money-saving trick — that was just unacceptable. And unlike in the OLPC, schools bought laptops from a variety of vendors, mostly interested in upselling lots of unnecessary features rather than providing a lightweight textbook device. Anyone familiar with the history of the TI-83 understands that corporations selling technology to schools are the lowest form of life.

I can't say for sure that this is what caused it, but it was right around the time that laptops started showing up in schools, and also when the concept of the "netbook" was introduced. The early netbooks certainly seemed to be imitating that weird green blob-shaped thing that OLPC hoped would revolutionize education in the less developed world.