We can't ever escape the market forces? You're right, of course if software gets less bloated, vendors will "value-optimize" hardware so in the end, computers keep being barely usable as they are today.

This year's average phone is already going to have less RAM than last year's average phone - so anything that reduces the footprint of the apps (and even more importantly, websites) we're using can only be a good thing. Plus it extends the usable life of current hardware.