Here's an idea. As an alternative to wrestling with resource heavy applications directly, implement heavy taxation on consumer device computational power. That is, tax production and consumption of desktop or portable devices based on how much they exceed the set limits of computational power and energy efficiency. The computational power limits could be something like a 2008 eee pc. You naturally can't use resource crazed apps like google docs, facebook or modern build systems, but everything sensible runs great.
To continue the regulation rant, closed source should be taxed similarly. Arguably, states lose more money due to closed source than most companies. At the same time, private interests invest into open source much more than states. This taxation should be used to fund open source.
