Microsoft allegedly wanted to get rid of the folder hiearchy completely. There were a lot of rumors surrounding "Windows 97" (what later became Windows 98) beca

Microsoft allegedly wanted to get rid of the folder hiearchy completely. There were a lot of rumors surrounding "Windows 97" (what later became Windows 98) because of its Internet integration (which eventually just turned into a lot of dead-end MSN widgets and Internet Explorer being shipped with the OS). I don't know how well-founded this speculation was but allegedly Microsoft wanted to fully commit to things like "cloud storage" (before this was a thing, so of course not using this name) and ended up shelving most of this work because the networks just weren't fast enough at the time. Note: I specifically remember these speculations in the lead-up to the release of Windows 98. They don't seem to be easy to google at this point.