Is it just me, or is "cloud computing" the dumbest idea ever?

Oh, sure, I know IT managers and journalists and armchair pundits are getting all breathless over the cloud. The cloud is going to change everything. The cloud is going to spell the demise of Microsoft and the rise of Google, or Zynga, or something else. The cloud will rescue us all from… I’m not sure what. But it'll be great. You just see.

To which I reply with a hearty, WTF?

Did you people not live through the 1980s? Do you not remember timesharing computers, modems, and dumb terminals? Did you think PCs and laptops were a step backwards?  I guess Moore's Law was all just a mistake, then. And Amdahl's Law, too. And Shannon's Law. Faster computers, more RAM, bigger disks, better graphics—that was all just a distraction, was it? Just a 30-year detour before we could get to the good stuff?