MOOCs and online education

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) and concerns about online education are all the rage these days at universities.  There is a growing recognition of a few key points:  The cost of undergraduate education (in the US at least) continues to increase much more rapidly than inflation; online capabilities are sufficiently advanced now that it is possible, for comparatively little investment, to distribute educational content to many thousands of people at very low cost, in principle having a major pedagogical impact (see, e.g., the Khan Academy, to say nothing of MIT's opencourseware); more than one major concern is springing up trying to guide online education at the university level (see, e.g., coursera and edX).  [Note to self:  find some demo as cool as the thermite reaction to hook people into any online course I ever teach.]  There is clearly a major sense of urgency on the part of university administrators.  To belabor an overused analogy, they are worried that the online education train is leaving the station, and they fear the consequences of getting left behind. 

All of these things are true, and I understand the concern.  However, a few points have occurred to me about this, and I'd be happy for some discussion in the comments if people are interested.

1. Many people do not really have the self-discipline to learn in an online-only environment.  I like to think I was a pretty dedicated student (no smart comments from my former classmates, please), and I'm not sure I would have the self-discipline to watch online-only lecture material and do online-only assignments for an entire semester.  Some people do have the personality for this, but I have a hunch that many of them are the same folks who really can check a book out of the library and teach themselves a new subject ab initio.  Most 18 year olds are not like that, and the peer pressure/social environment of having friends physically going to scheduled classes is a major motivator.  Bill Press, when he visited Rice and we chatted about this, pointed out that many people pay real money to take Microsoft online certification courses, and complete them at a high rate.  That's true, but it's also a particular case where the financial benefits of completing that particular course are often very clear to the student, and it's also true that there's a difference between university study and vocational training.
2. It only makes sense to develop online courses where your institution really adds value.  Does anyone think it would be a good idea for every major university to develop their own MOOC for Introductory Calculus?  We could do that, but in the end there will likely be a small handful of truly innovative, extremely well done calc courses.  The market will drive toward some kind of mix-and-match mode of operation (unless the content providers constrain things greatly).
3. The sense of urgency is not unreasonable, but early innovators don't necessarily win the day.  For example, Lycos and Alta Vista were early to the scene in "search", yet comparative latecomer google crushed them.

So, are MOOCs really going to sweep through and destroy the modern university system?  Are physical universities going to become like specialty bookshops and online providers like Amazon?  Let me know what you think.