A year or two ago, I set up a retired family friend with an old desktop machine running Ubuntu and Chrome.
He loved using it. Who wouldn't love the web if they'd never had it before? All he ever did was launch Chrome and browse websites. Sometimes he'd watch catch-up TV, but that was also through Chrome.
A while back, a failed Ubuntu upgrade left the machine unbootable, and I had to reinstall Ubuntu for him. More recently, the HD crashed.
So for his birthday we bought him a £200 Chromebook. It has exactly the same relevant capabilities as the old Ubuntu desktop, but it's small, light, low-power, and unlikely to get viruses or ask incomprehensible questions about software updates.
Yes, an iPad might have worked too, but it would have been a lot more expensive, less familiar, and lacking in Flash (which, if all you ever do is browse websites, can still be somewhat limiting).
For me, the biggest problem with laptops is keeping them sync'd with my desktop. I could use a laptop as a primary computer, and with better expansion options than previously exited (USB3, dual Display Ports, etc.), but I still find laptops limiting, meaning I only use them when I can't have my desktop. My desktop has 6 cores, 4 drives, a high-quality sound card, a real serial port, etc. These things are all important for what I use a computer for, most of the time, and a laptop just isn't good enough to be my only machine.
Chrome OS solves the synchronization problem for me. The configurability is restricted more than my average Linux box, so there is less to concern myself about setting up. My browser settings and extension sync, the desktop background syncs, etc. I can take a brand new Chromebook and be up in running in 5 minutes.
That's the value proposition of Chrome OS for me. Once it is up and running, I can ssh to a real computer and browse the web, which is what I'd do with a ultra-excellent billion-core superlaptop 99% of the time anyway.
The other 1% of the time, I'd like to use a laptop for portable software-defined radio applications, and as it stands, Chrome OS is terrible for that. But since Chrome has APIs for talking to USB, serial ports, and audio, I'm actually working on supporting controlling my radio and analyzing the I/Q inputs as a Chrome packaged app. The advantage for me is that I'll have SDR functionality on any computer I encounter: you can install packaged apps from the webstore on Chrome OS, Mac, Windows, and Linux, and everything will Just Work.
Finally, the Pixel has the best screen I've ever seen on a computer.
Anyway, Chrome OS is nowhere near its full potential just with the APIs available today. I think as more developers write awesome web apps or Chrome apps, more people will use Chrome OS, further incentivizing developers to create even better non-desktop apps. But as it stands, I am 100% satisfied with the Pixel as my primary laptop, and I imagine many other people are too.
During my Google Glass intro, I had the chance to use a Pixel during the meeting. My wife was more attracted to the Pixel than the Glass. They probably could have sold her one that day if they had pushed it on her.
>I asked a couple different Best Buy reps if the Chromebooks had a big return rate. "All the time," both said frankly. "They return it in a couple of days. They don't know how it works."
That happens post-sale which means the sales figures are good.
They are lured in by the price and get screwed. That's all this shows.
Crap netbooks, no-brand PC accessories and appliances, landfill Androids and supermarket bubble-packed electronics fill the same market sector.
Edit: I stand by my comment :)