web services as OS

Wouldn't that be the translation code - The (server-side scripting + HTML/CSS + UI)? That group seems to me to be the layer that lies between the client (browser/user/app) and the webservice. Or, maybe I've missed the point - but then I have a difficult time envisioning the Internet as an OS, it seems far too passive to me.

and where is the memory allocation? where is the process management?

To be honest, I find the analogy naive and self-serving. Why does the Internet need to be shoved into the Operating System bin? They're two completely different things, with little in common except that they involve computers. Operating systems handle low-level tasks, like (as mentioned above) memory management, process allocation, disk I/O, etc., and don't really have much of an analogue. If I had to answer your question though, the physical layer would probably be like the sum total of all of: HTTP, TCP/IP, Ethernet, etc. In other words, the network protocols. The stuff between the hardware (routers, physical servers, etc) and the software (browsers et al). There'd be varying layers inside this abstraction of course (TCP/IP is higher than HTTP for example).

Good feedback, Nick. I don't think the Internet needs to be shoved into the OS bin. I'm thinking that picturing it as analogous to something that we have lots of experience working with and analyzing might yield some useful perspective.

Wait, what does analagous mean again?

I think CSS may be a reasonable analogy to device drivers, though perhaps it's closer to a hardware abstraction layer like DirectX.

Using CSS we change web sites to present themselves according to their device, be it a full-fledged browser, or a WAP browser, or WebTV, or whatever else.

I think, in your analogy, the operating systeim itself becomes the device driver.