my general computing as a subscription to a server.
You say this, but I think most of us have offloaded formerly local computing to a server of some kind:
- Email organization, including folders and attachments, has mostly shifted from a desktop client saving offline copies retrieved and then deleted from the server, to web and app and even IMAP interfaces to the canonical cloud server organization.
- A huge chunk of users have shifted their productivity tasks (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, image editing and design) to web-based software.
- A lot of math functionality is honestly just easier to plug into web-based calculators for finance, accounting, and even the higher level math that Wolfram Alpha excels at.
- Lots of media organization, from photos to videos to music, are now in cloud-based searchable albums and playlists.
All these things used to be local uses of computing, and can now be accessed from low powered smartphones. Things like Chromebooks give a user access to between 50-100% of what they'd be doing on a full fledged high powered desktop, depending on the individual needs and use cases.