I'm old enough to be an Engineer living 1k away from Google when it was born. I'm not sure if I believe DNE was exactly about Microsoft, rather a more general

I'm old enough to be an Engineer living 1k away from Google when it was born. I'm not sure if I believe DNE was exactly about Microsoft, rather a more general mantra. In 98' the founders were running around giving talks about how 'advertising was ruining the internet' which wasn't really an MS things. So I think MS was just one factor, but yes, most don't remember a time when they were so dominant.