OSNews

I'm not convinced your suggestion that people won't put $300 software on a $300 machine is correct: there are a lot of laptops you can buy new for about that price when they go on special, that are likely to actually be more powerful than a net book.

Also, the size of device=cost of software isn't necessarily a good comparison/reasoning, either, because the whole point of getting something small is because you believe it fits your needs better than something bigger, and therefore you're willing/able to pay the inevitable premium for such a critter, as that's a value by itself, combined with the reality that it tends to cost more to make things smaller for the equivalent performance you could get cheaply in a larger machine. Look at the price of some of the smallest regular (or whatever you want to call them!) laptops: they cost a lot more than something that's just a bit bigger, physically, and far more than a desktop with the equivalent RAM/speed/etc. making portability a much more expensive thing.

Now, that's not to say that customers aren't always looking to get their software as cheaply as they can, as long as it fulfills their real or perceived needs