Much of the application is unsurprising, and even somewhat dated. The vision incorporates heavily-subsidised hardware (though not under a timed service contract) that can utilise services on a pay-as-you-go basis. Certain programs and functions cost more than others, and could be unlocked on demand. At first that sounds like a reasonable approach, but it’s not just high-performance software that can be rented, it’s high performance itself.

Described in the patent is a system by which individuals will be forced to rent different levels of computer performance, being shunted into an arbitrarily-slow mode if they choose not to pay. In other words, to play a high-end game, you’d have to rent not just the game, but a sort of unlock for your processor, RAM and video hardware, just so you can fully make use of them.

The idea of subsidised, service-fee based computing has potential, but not like this. It’d be hard to imagine Microsoft winning many fans by forcing users to pay to unlock the obvious potential of hardware that is sitting right in front of them. [CNET—Thanks, Gibberish]

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the catch is the netbooks will be subsidised. Instead of paying full price for an Asus Eee PC, the Dell Mini 9 or HP 2133 Mini-Note, customers will pay $US99 and agree to a two-year broadband contract. The WSJ reports that HP is already well underway with talks with unnamed carriers. The paper speculates Dell and Asus are talking too.

Leading the rumour mill talk is AT&T, says the WSJ, which already has a deal with Lenovo and Ericsson to sell ThinkPads with a $US150 discount (or, what the industry thinks a two-year broadband contract is worth). If you subtract that $US150 from a netbook, well, you have yourself quite the little deal now, don’t you?

This practice seems inevitable, but I’d like to gauge public opinion anyway: What say you to $US99-$US150 netbooks, with a contract? [WSJ via Computerworld]