Commercial Unix was destroyed around that time, but I don't think that's what PHK was referring to. The seeds of commercial Unix's destruction had been sewn in

Commercial Unix was destroyed around that time, but I don't think that's what PHK was referring to. The seeds of commercial Unix's destruction had been sewn in the decade before. I suspect he's referring to the change that happened in the late 90s as far as the level of quality required to exist in an OS distribution. Linux distributions had a way to bundling every hobbyist project on the planet, with practically no editorial oversight.