A top Apple executive defended the tech giant’s decision to make Google the default search engine on Apple iPhones and Macs, saying there was no “valid alternative.’’
MS did exactly what you describe Google doing with free unlimited storage.
In the 90s, it absolutely was not easy to change your browser because operating systems didn’t come with browsers. You had to go to a physical store, buy a box of software, and go home and install it. Sure you could find an OSS browser if you knew how to browse the net via command line, but your average newcomer to the net in the mid 90s had no clue how to do so. For the most part, browsers existed as a purchase.
But then MS decided to bundle their browser in for free with the OS, which at the time was the most widely used OS by far, and it completely eviscerated the market. Imagine you’re an average user and you now have IE as part of your new Windows 95 install. What impetus do you have to go out and spend $60 on another browser?
MS took their existing market dominance and used it to completely destroy the competition in the browser space. And it took decades to break that stranglehold.
The shitty part tho is that we traded one monopolist for another. Now that Google is dominating the browser world, they’re essentially controlling the shape of the web and how we use it
I wasn’t that tech savvy when I got my first desktop in 1994. Until then, I had only had a Commodore 64. I started with AOL because it seemed like the only way to get on the internet. Once I figured out that it was a horrible and expensive product I switched to a flat rate provider, rather than “by the minute” (which was a scam when it took 2 minutes just to download 1 webpage). The instillation disk came bundled with Netscape Navigator for free. I used Netscape from 1995 until it morphed into Firefox, and then continued using Firefox until a few years ago when better FOSS browsers came out.
It was never that hard to switch derault browsers in Win 98, and Netscape was not only free, but very heavily promoted everywhere.
My son uses Windows. He has machines running Windows 1 all the way up to Windows 11. He loves retro computers. He also has a couple Linux machines, but he prefers Windows even though he constantly talks to me about how horrible Windows is and how many things don’t work properly and the surveillance that is embedded in the OS. I know that Microsoft is trying to be as evil as Google. That’s why (as I stated on a different comment reply) I think the government went after the default browser issue because it was the softest target. Also, when they won they just forced Microsoft to make it easier to change the default browser, which gave them a victory in the media, but did nothing to curtail Microsoft’s tactics.
By the minute made lots more sense in the days before the Web. You’d go online, send/receive your email and log off. Maybe you’d download the weather report also.
That might be the only time you went online all day. 5 minutes tops. That’s how about half the ISP users used the Internet in the early 90’s.
MS did exactly what you describe Google doing with free unlimited storage.
In the 90s, it absolutely was not easy to change your browser because operating systems didn’t come with browsers. You had to go to a physical store, buy a box of software, and go home and install it. Sure you could find an OSS browser if you knew how to browse the net via command line, but your average newcomer to the net in the mid 90s had no clue how to do so. For the most part, browsers existed as a purchase.
But then MS decided to bundle their browser in for free with the OS, which at the time was the most widely used OS by far, and it completely eviscerated the market. Imagine you’re an average user and you now have IE as part of your new Windows 95 install. What impetus do you have to go out and spend $60 on another browser?
MS took their existing market dominance and used it to completely destroy the competition in the browser space. And it took decades to break that stranglehold.
The shitty part tho is that we traded one monopolist for another. Now that Google is dominating the browser world, they’re essentially controlling the shape of the web and how we use it
I wasn’t that tech savvy when I got my first desktop in 1994. Until then, I had only had a Commodore 64. I started with AOL because it seemed like the only way to get on the internet. Once I figured out that it was a horrible and expensive product I switched to a flat rate provider, rather than “by the minute” (which was a scam when it took 2 minutes just to download 1 webpage). The instillation disk came bundled with Netscape Navigator for free. I used Netscape from 1995 until it morphed into Firefox, and then continued using Firefox until a few years ago when better FOSS browsers came out.
It was never that hard to switch derault browsers in Win 98, and Netscape was not only free, but very heavily promoted everywhere.
My son uses Windows. He has machines running Windows 1 all the way up to Windows 11. He loves retro computers. He also has a couple Linux machines, but he prefers Windows even though he constantly talks to me about how horrible Windows is and how many things don’t work properly and the surveillance that is embedded in the OS. I know that Microsoft is trying to be as evil as Google. That’s why (as I stated on a different comment reply) I think the government went after the default browser issue because it was the softest target. Also, when they won they just forced Microsoft to make it easier to change the default browser, which gave them a victory in the media, but did nothing to curtail Microsoft’s tactics.
By the minute made lots more sense in the days before the Web. You’d go online, send/receive your email and log off. Maybe you’d download the weather report also.
That might be the only time you went online all day. 5 minutes tops. That’s how about half the ISP users used the Internet in the early 90’s.