I believe that Apple aggressive pricing of the last operating systems (up to the current "free") had much more influence on the decision, together with Ubuntu progress in terms of usability.

Edit: Probably is all off these put together, nowadays most users simply do not expect to pay for an updated OS.

I got a Chromebook for my teenager and one for myself at work for note taking, etc. It's been a win for the kid. At work, it's been a pain in the ass. Google spreadsheets is pretty bad and can't handle many of the spreadsheets I need to deal with on a regular basis. And, gotomeeting doesn't work on the Chromebook, even though they have a new web-based version.

Printing is the Achilles heel, however there are new printers out that have Cloud Print built in.

However, a agree, it is a game changer.

It's the classic innovator's dilemma. ChromeOS was worse/cheaper than the existing options, but good enough for some people/uses.