Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why did Microsoft create a web browser in the first place? Did Microsoft make any more money by having control of the do

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why did Microsoft create a web browser in the first place? Did Microsoft make any more money by having control of the dominant web browser? They could have just let Netscape win. Later when Google demonstrated the value of search, Microsoft could have just shipped Firefox with Bing set at the default search engine. Microsoft wouldn't have had to pay for decades of browser development, and it wouldn't have been slapped with a huge anti-trust action by the US Department of Justice.