I don’t miss dial-up internet, I just don’t. I don’t even like the sound because it’s just digital screeches and it’s a sound that makes me cringe a little upon hearing it. Because I remember the times when I’d be listening to music with headphones with volume high and then that fucking digital screech just blares into my ears.
I don’t miss waiting 30 minutes to load a page. I don’t miss a bit of it.
I don’t miss them either, but they were necessary in moving our portable devices forward. Everyone and their best friend was making bigger and faster laptops. No one was making power efficient and light ones. Netbooks filled that need. And cost less than a macbook air by a large margin.
I used an Acer one with an atom as a mobile terminal for six years before the battery gave up on me. I was getting a day’s work out of a device I could fit in my (oversized) back pockets. And since it was just an SSH device, the speed didn’t matter.