During the windows rule, hardware specs went up but not much happened otherwise. Hard drives and RAM became 100 times bigger, but there was the same Start butto

During the windows rule, hardware specs went up but not much happened otherwise. Hard drives and RAM became 100 times bigger, but there was the same Start button, the same IE5 that became IE6 (sigh), the same games and videos on CDs. The only big innovative thing born in those years was 3D acceleration. In the last few years we've seen a tremendous explosion of modern web, content streaming services; in the same time, rich mobile devices caught traction. They failed to do so for the whole 00s despite everyone predicting them to each year. Basically, that's what having a platform monopoly or having no platform at all gets you.