This would be useful in places with notoriously bad internet connections. When I was in China a couple years ago, even getting a reliable connection was a stretch, let alone being able to use it for something other than transfer of small plaintext.

I set up a box back at home and was able to use my 60MB connection by just transferring I/O via something like VNC or LogMeIn. I can see this being valuable for users in countries with subpar internet connectivity.