At least among nerds who were early adopters, this was an oft cited reason for their personal enthusiasm about Google versus incumbent search engines. Of course

At least among nerds who were early adopters, this was an oft cited reason for their personal enthusiasm about Google versus incumbent search engines. Of course quality of results was paramount, but the spartan homepage definitely drove that segment of early success. The theory that tech adoption promoted more mainstream adoption may be more “just so”, I think that’s harder to validate (but given the adoption of computers and internet at the time, it’s probably at least partially true).