I actually feel that many people, especially poor people, benefited from the Netbook craze. At the time, I worked at a computer store in Sunnyvale, CA selling m

I actually feel that many people, especially poor people, benefited from the Netbook craze. At the time, I worked at a computer store in Sunnyvale, CA selling many different types of used PCs. Netbooks allowed many people to purchase a fully working small laptop for their kids and for themselves that they treated as almost fully disposable. The OLPC did challenge the industry to create a cheaper option. Netbooks were a truly portable laptop. You could stick in your glove compartment, you could stick it in a small backpack. It just didn't get the respect that a full blown $1000+ laptop would get. Today, the computers that I stick in my glove compartment and backpacks are tablets, and this because the Netbook form-factor instilled certain computing habits that the Tablets later improved.