Web hosting, in our opinion, is becoming a commodity especially among the small business market, as the OP pointed out, its becoming very simple to create a website and get online.
While internet connections are getting faster and faster, we still try to focus on optimising our customers websites for the search engines, but also for speed as well, which Google has been measuring in WMT for some time.
We find its the overall experience for the customer, as to whether or not they do business with a company, so if our clients website isn't performing and converting, then we're not performing.
The reason I say this is important is not everyone in the world, and like others mentioned, even in parts of the US, UK and Australia, internet connections are still poor, though are heavily relied upon.
Mobile website development was a godsend for the web development and hosting industry, as it taught us all to go back to basics, with lite websites which boast core functionality, with no bells and whistles the customer didn't need.
Despite the majority of internet connections in major areas developing at a rapid rate, there are still 56k dial-up connections about, which should be considered when developing a website.
