Which is another way of saying they weren't economically viable at the prices consumers were willing to pay for them.

The iPad killed Netbooks stone dead. I had a netbook, but 6 months later I got an iPad 2 and have literally don't believe I have even touched the netbook since. I currently have no idea where it is, but should probably trash it just on general data privacy principles.

They were entirely viable for upstart/rising PC manufacturers like Acer, the form-factor and "just good enough" utility was a startling break from the 15-19" laptop form factors that were the rage back in 2006/2007 when netbooks

Netbooks, if you remember, are the commercial response to OLPC, I saw one - it was a pretty sweet toy. So Intel wanted to not only kill the OLPC (and thus created Netbooks as a response), but then Microsoft saw that Linux was acutally taking hold, and decided to get in on the hit-job and whack the Netbook category before it cannibalized their bigger vendors' profits (and their own licensing profits).

And yes, the iPad (and later the 11" MB Air) put a final stake in heart of the netbook - both more stylish and usable for real non-power users for "consumption" than either a netbook or standard laptop.