> IE outcompeted that by adding new features until they had enough share to strangle the competition.
ie won because it wasn't an utter piece of shit. Netscape 3 crashed if you looked at it crosseyed, and ie3 was significantly more stable and performant. I worked at one of the first companies to ship a serious app targeting a browser and, at one point, 1/3 of our front-end code was fingerprinting various netscape versions and working around their browser bugs. The world rushed to ie3/4 because it wasn't garbage.
I'm not saying Microsoft didn't abuse their monopoly position or compete in underhanded and illegal ways, but they originally won purely on quality. People shipping serious web apps begged their users to get off netscape.
ie won because it wasn't an utter piece of shit. Netscape 3 crashed if you looked at it crosseyed, and ie3 was significantly more stable and performant. I worked at one of the first companies to ship a serious app targeting a browser and, at one point, 1/3 of our front-end code was fingerprinting various netscape versions and working around their browser bugs. The world rushed to ie3/4 because it wasn't garbage.
I'm not saying Microsoft didn't abuse their monopoly position or compete in underhanded and illegal ways, but they originally won purely on quality. People shipping serious web apps begged their users to get off netscape.