

In Regard to Marc Andreessen’s “Why Software is Eating the World” - purplefruit
http://sfard.posterous.com/in-regard-to-marc-andreessens-why-software-is

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spinchange
The browser wars still haunt the economics of the web and software.

Looking back, it is ironic that Microsoft's monopoly conviction came from
their decision to first license Internet Explorer for free (as in beer) then
to bundle it with Windows. At the time, it was the death knell to Mr.
Andreessen's Netscape as they charged for their browser and Windows had far
more platform dominance than they do today.

I think that set an important standard in a lot of people's mind - I mean
Microsoft made you pay for _everything._ The web was the brand new frontier
and it was so important to them that they would license the browser for free
to compete against Netscape.

The US Government said that was "evil." Looking back, I'm not so sure it was.
I do think these old things are a big factor on why we are where we are with
respect to the economics of the web.

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daemin
Good point there, would the web be as prevelant today if people had to fork
out $50 for a browser separately from the operating system and the computer
which they bought?

Maybe other protocols would have been made more popular in that case.

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enobrev
If software is a growing industry and other industries are shrinking, it seems
it would make the most sense that the unemployed learn to program.

