4 ms·
> People were never gonna pay for a browser People were paying for browsers. It was the norm before Microsoft gave away Internet Explorer for free, which sort
by smcl 4y ago
> People were never gonna pay for a browser
People were paying for browsers. It was the norm before Microsoft gave away Internet Explorer for free, which sort of killed that business model. Even so, well into the 2000s there were still browsers that you paid for (like Opera)
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y agoHad Microsoft not shipped IE for free, piracy would have taken Opera and Netscape out of business. Or Adobe would have. Enterprise customers don't have the time to shop one piece of software for every function. Microsoft Server solves(ed) them lots of problems.
- smcl 4y agoI don't see how that follows. In fact Opera existed as a paid product for years after IE started being bundled with Windows, Netscape open-sourcing and even after Google released Chrome. It's now been bought by a Chinese conglomerate and is apparently "freeware", but the fact that it lasted so long against free or OSS browsers suggests they probably would've survived just fine.
- jasode 4y ago>People were paying for browsers. It was the norm before Microsoft gave away Internet Explorer for free, No, not really. Most people paid $0 for web browsers even in the early Netscape's days in October 1994. That was Netscape's deliberate intention and was stated in their press release: https://web.archive.org/web/20061207145832/http://wp.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20061207145832/http://wp.netscap... Personal use was free. Netscape intended for businesses to pay for the browser. Both the older Mosaic browser and Netscape Navigator were free for non-commercial use in 1994. Free browsers were the norm before the Browser Wars of 1995 kicked off with MS releasing Internet Explorer 1.0.