Before the 1990s most computing was done on mainframes that were expensive and difficult to access, because that was simply the state of hardware.

Then we had a couple decades of software running on personal computing hardware because networking hardware sucked.

Now with broadband we're back to running software on servers because cloud computing has made it cost efficient, and software companies can have far greater control over the user experience.

The looming question in my mind: can we swing the pendulum back in the other direction by focusing on development of p2p apps and infrastructure?