I’d argue that ChromeOS only succeeds at funneling kids into Google’s browser products, not keeping them in ChromeOS. Because you can get basically the same experience on any PC, whether it’s running Windows, MacOS, or Linux.
Once kids grow up and get a job, they run into the limitations of ChromeOS pretty fast and swap to something with a real OS. Unless they’re at a company that exclusively uses browser-based tools without any desktop apps or plugins, which is pretty rare IMO.
Unless they’re at a company that exclusively uses browser-based tools
It doesn’t necessarily need to be an entire company. It can easily just be a division or a department. Sure, you can’t easily migrate engineering or design roles to a browser-based system; but Sales, Marketing (except design), Writing, Management, Strategic Planning, HR, Finance, Accounting, and Administration are just some departments that can be entirely or nearly entirely cloud-native (and in many cases already are).
I’d argue that ChromeOS only succeeds at funneling kids into Google’s browser products, not keeping them in ChromeOS.
But when management discovers that they can reduce IT hardware costs by 50% or more by switching to a platform that their younger employees already know, they’ll probably start doing it.
The world is heading back in the direction of thin clients, honestly. But in this new thin client world, the browser will be the only thing on the bare metal.
What you’re proposing is definitely possible, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. Partially because people just aren’t interested in going there, and partly because Chromebook hardware tends to suck. Also, Chrome is bloated as hell on its own, you need at least 16GB of RAM to open up more than a handful of tabs 😆.
Plus, Chromebooks have ALREADY been around long enough for this to happen. The first Chromebook was sold in 2011! And in the 12 years since, Chromebooks have dominated the middle school market, of course. But they’ve managed to take approximately 0% of the market in the professional space. Even college kids don’t use Chromebooks, it’s all Macs and PCs.
At this moment, Chromebooks are for middle school kids, and also sometimes for casual home users. Not saying they can never be anything else, but that’s the current reality.
I’d argue that ChromeOS only succeeds at funneling kids into Google’s browser products, not keeping them in ChromeOS. Because you can get basically the same experience on any PC, whether it’s running Windows, MacOS, or Linux.
Once kids grow up and get a job, they run into the limitations of ChromeOS pretty fast and swap to something with a real OS. Unless they’re at a company that exclusively uses browser-based tools without any desktop apps or plugins, which is pretty rare IMO.
It doesn’t necessarily need to be an entire company. It can easily just be a division or a department. Sure, you can’t easily migrate engineering or design roles to a browser-based system; but Sales, Marketing (except design), Writing, Management, Strategic Planning, HR, Finance, Accounting, and Administration are just some departments that can be entirely or nearly entirely cloud-native (and in many cases already are).
But when management discovers that they can reduce IT hardware costs by 50% or more by switching to a platform that their younger employees already know, they’ll probably start doing it.
The world is heading back in the direction of thin clients, honestly. But in this new thin client world, the browser will be the only thing on the bare metal.
What you’re proposing is definitely possible, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. Partially because people just aren’t interested in going there, and partly because Chromebook hardware tends to suck. Also, Chrome is bloated as hell on its own, you need at least 16GB of RAM to open up more than a handful of tabs 😆.
Plus, Chromebooks have ALREADY been around long enough for this to happen. The first Chromebook was sold in 2011! And in the 12 years since, Chromebooks have dominated the middle school market, of course. But they’ve managed to take approximately 0% of the market in the professional space. Even college kids don’t use Chromebooks, it’s all Macs and PCs.
At this moment, Chromebooks are for middle school kids, and also sometimes for casual home users. Not saying they can never be anything else, but that’s the current reality.