In 1998 you couldn't even stream a music video over the internet.
In 2012 you can stream the entire game of Quake 2 through your browser in under 5 minutes. If you told me this while I was installing Quake 2 through my CD-ROM and waiting 30 minutes for it to finish, my head would have exploded.
We're definitely getting there. Still, with storage what it is right now, that 5 minutes becomes your startup time.
But a game built with this environment in mind would likely fare much better. I truly feel that we're just a couple of mobile browser upgrades from widespread accelerated browser 3d.
http://playwebgl.com/games/quake-2-webgl/