These are some rogue ideas and questions that have been roaming around my mind for a time now.
First, Internet services. People typically buy and use pre-paid subscription services, which use to reset the available data transfer supply back to entry value for every customer, each new 'month', regardless whether 1% or 100% of given transfer was used - charging full conventional price. What about if you could actually buy and use only as much as you need or want? You see, the "amount" of Internet access one gets, in data flow, is sold in packages, much like microtransactions known from another field. You buy per 10, 50, 100, 500 or 1000 GB of data in download and upload thresholds, for example. Bought packages are understandably cumulative, with order of expenditure matching the order of purchase. The customer has all the available data until use up, ideally speaking, but in certain scenarios, one year expiry date could be imposed. When either the edge of use up or expiry date comes close, an application - something like the 'Lite Widget' or a little monitor of a sort somewhere else - pops up and tells one is about to drain the supply. Okay, but what if I am a gamer using some cloud services for gaming and I am just in the middle of a very important duel? There must be some immediate mean to 'pump up' the data flow stock available. If so, one could opt for a smart-watch, which would always indicate how much of data storage is available for given user, for all connected devices. Preset default package, one click or two click buy, done in an instant. I call it 'the fluid model'.
EDIT:
Speaking of gaming services, in case all desktop was to be based on the cloud and the actual quality PC hardware was to be a matter of selected settings, I wonder how this could affect the gaming industry. First of all, native gaming would basically equal contemporary cloud gaming. It would make better sense if games were bought and streamed from the same source the virtual desktop resides in. Which means, the desktop would only make for the 'access gate' to a game, telling whether the purchased setup allows to run the game and how well it can do, while the very game itself, would be streamed anyway.
Unnecessarily better than contemporary visions of cloud gaming, which do not base on any particular user-dependent hardware setup, but it would make more money, since gamers buy gamer level of stuff.
Face it, if you want to milk anyone, at least milk those who voluntarily involve in useless stuff anyway.
