
Outsource the hardware!
Assuming a user was on a futuristic high-end connection:
One possibility is that this could create services that run the appropriate hardware and software for you to use applications (such as high-end games) remotely.
Services like this could just update your web-application's display to show what the application/game shows remotely - clicks, etc, in the web-application could be sent back to the server for user in the remote application.
You would never again have to update your hardware or software - but subscription or usage fees would be ghastly. After all, someone would have to pay for all of that hardware.
Alternatively, someone could just write a horribly large high-end web-application and go back to the "upgrade your hardware" run-around.
Either way - more money lost, or more bandwidth lost, or both.