Internet Explorer: The epitaph of a once dominant browser

Microsoft once was sued and lost in an antitrust case over Internet Explorer. Market forces shortly rendered that suit a complete waste of time except to concentrate more money into the hands of DC politicians through lobbyists.

Internet Explorer, we hardly knew 'ya. You made lives better, then pissed everyone off, and then just kind of went into a coma for fifteen years or so. Survived by Edge. // photo and manip my own, with apologies to Paul Revere

Microsoft has announced the official demise of Internet Explorer, the piece of software that summoned a massive firestorm in the late 90s regarding software antitrust. People on the side of breaking up Microsoft were incredibly impassioned about the evils and horror of bundling browser software for free into an operating system. Free software? Nobody can compete with that! Signed, Mozilla, Safari, Google Drive, Open Office, Gimp, SketchUp, Linux...

I was a Netscape 4.7 fanboy until I realized Internet Explorer 5.0 had surpassed Netscape's capabilities. At that time, Netscape had 80% market share of the browser market. They would never again see that kind of market share. Internet Explorer surged to 95% market share by the time George W Bush's reelection campaign was in full swing.

It's hard to picture now, given the laughing stock Internet Explorer has been in the past decade and a half, but it really was the best browser until Firefox came along.

People were outraged. People wanted Bill Gates's blood. People wanted the unstoppable behemoth Microsoft broken up.

The fist-shakers claimed that bundling the software was anti-competitive. Well, is it anti-competitive for BeOS to package their operating system with NetPositive? Is it anti-competitive for a home builder to include their own cabinets in their houses? Is it anti-competitive for cabinet-makers to include their own hardware handles? Or is this special pleading for a company preordained to be evil?

They complained that IE was the default browser and that it was hard to change it to another browser. Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I had no problem switching it over to another browser. It was literally a single mouse click to do so.

They complained that nobody could compete with a "free" product and that people were forced to pay for it as part of the operating system. That's not clear, given that Windows 98 upgrade price in 1998 when IE was bundled was $109 while Windows 95 upgrade price in 1995 without IE was...$109. But okay I understand the argument, but can anyone really imagine having to pay for a web browser today? Even in 1997, I couldn't imagine having to drive to the store to shell out $49 for a web browser. I always chuckled when I walked past a box of Netscape software at Fry's Electronics. There is no doubt that consumers have been the big winners of free browsers. The continual dispassionate shrugging of the shoulders to consumer needs has often (but not always) been a side effect to the corporatist gestures toward anti-competitive claims.

So in 1998, the US Government sued Microsoft. 

In 2001, after a trial, the court ordered Microsoft to be broken up into two companies. However, after an appeal, Microsoft and the DOJ eventually settled on having Microsoft share its API with third-party members with no alterations to its code or bundling necessary. The settlement was essentially a meaningless slap on the wrist if you could even call it that. Industry pundits came up with dystopian futures where Microsoft would rule the world and that they could only die "by suicide".

Of course, that is not what happened. There are several corporations on the political chopping block today to split into multiple corporations. Amazon, Facebook, and Google come to mind. I have not heard the name Microsoft come up once. No one quivers at the mantle of the Windows logo today.

Market share of browsers from 2009 to 2020. Lynx browser curiously omitted. // graph by StatCounter

Soon after the settlement in 2001, Mozilla began a project that would soon evolve into Firefox, a hugely popular browser that would eat significantly into Internet Explorer's market share as Microsoft ceased to keep up with the times. By 2006, Internet Explorer was in permanent decline. Then in 2008, a fledgling company called Google released a web browser named after some bathroom faucet finish. Brushed Nickel or Brass or Chrome or something. Ever heard of it? By 2012, Chrome exceeded Internet Explorer in market share, to 77% today. Anyone even paying slight attention to tech had already abandoned Internet Explorer at least five years prior to surpassing IE.

Aside from just the browser wars, smartphones became the battleground which Apple, whom many had declared dead company walking in 2004, pulled past Blackberry and started dominating the space, with Google close on its heels. Microsoft's Windows Phone never had a chance. Since then, Windows has had a steadily declining market share while Apple's OSX has had a steadily increasing market share while Chrome OS started to poke its head up with cheap laptop sales. In 2018, it was Apple that was first to cross the line to being valued at $1 trillion. Tech evolves? Who knew?

All this happened without any real government intervention.

Unfortunately, while Microsoft had avoided playing the political game in DC before the lawsuit, everything changed after they were blitzed by the DOJ. They opened a shiny new office on K Street and filled it to the brim with lobbyists and lawyers in fancy suits and big money to divert to reelection campaigns as they saw fit. 

If I were a touch more cynical, I might say that was the plan all along, to bring Microsoft money into town. Mission accomplished, I guess.

It was the free market that broke up the Microsoft browser "monopoly" and we can easily look at this for a case study of the tech conglomerates today.

Back then, Microsoft looked like an absolute juggernaut that no force could possibly stop or even slow, just like Google and Facebook today. But just like during the Microsoft era, the answer lies not in the government, but in the free market. Don't like Chrome's 77% market share? Do what I do. Use Brave. Don't like Google's search with a 92% market share that tracks your information? Do what I do. Use Qwant, or Duck Duck Go. Don't like Facebook's dominating market share? Well, I don't really use social media much, but go use MeWe instead. Don't like YouTube's market share dominance that comes with the built-in deplatforming feature? May I suggest you look into LBRY/Odysee instead? 

If I may borrow language from cultish 2001 Apple fanboys, the free market just works.

With a free market, you pretty much always have options, particularly if the dominant one is not a terribly good one.

With the government in antitrust enforcement, all you've got is a prayer, but without the wing, as you crash nose first into Lobbyist Row on the taxpayer's dime.