> * games
Isn't steam like this? The bits get downloaded to your machine, but if Steam goes offline your SOL.
What steam could use is better download management. If they moved over to an on-demand streaming architecture it'd be really huge. The days you'd need to preload software could be over. This sort of thing has been solved many times before, so it's technically possible. In fact, as I type this I wonder why they haven't done it already.
It does have an "offline mode" where it will pre-decrypt the games or whatever it does behind the scenes.
Why would on-demand streaming be a good thing? Now you have to worry about ISPs and bandwidth, it doesn't solve the problem.
I need to worry about ISPs and bandwidth before, it's just that now I can be more frivolous with what I have installed on my machine (no sense leaving something installed "just in case").
SAAS is inferior in:
* games
* text editors
* photo editors
* IDEs
Backup storage is okay, but I live in a country with tight bandwidth caps so I can't really use things, plus I don't want Google or Dropbox or MeGa snooping at what I upload.
So I would never pay to use any of the above things, and I would certainly NEVER pay Adobe for anything. I'm fortunate that I don't need to use their products.