Browser Wars and Bubble

Browser Wars, part 1 & 2: The history of the Web, from Marc Andreessen’s “Mosaic” browser through Microsoft’s antitrust judgment. What is striking about the history of the Internet is that visionaries (and visionary-financiers like Jim Clark, co-founder of Netscape Communications) initially developed the browser as a means to access the information superhighway, and to make it a means of open-source contribution to access and contribute to the Web’s content (and hopefully turn a profit in the process). With the new convenience created by the graphical web browser, the Web expanded at an unbelievable rate – thanks in particular to Netscape’s 1994 Navigator browser.

In the first 30 days of its release, 90% of Internet users switched from Mosaic to the Netscape web browser. Since Navigator (or any browser, for that matter) could be used as an alternative operating platform, Bill Gates’ Microsoft felt that its computer platform domination was threatened – and with it, Microsoft’s total domination of the industry. By one account, Microsoft (from one day to the next) mounted an attack with the goal of destroying Netscape - in the way it had gobbled-up so many software companies during the previous few years.

With Microsoft’s Windows operating system already effectively holding a monopoly on the PC operating platform, Microsoft’s attempt at a hostile takeover of Netscape prompted them to seek a federal anti-trust suit against Microsoft. Microsoft claimed it had been “set up;” at the same time, Netscape was poised to become the fastest-growing software company ever, particularly when it broke all records on the day it “went public.” Hostilities between Netscape (that is, specifically Marc Andreessen) and Microsoft escalated. Microsoft released its own browser: Internet Explorer, with the intent of chipping away at Netscape’s livelihood. Shadowy salesmen forced multi-year sales deals with PC manufacturers, who – in order to get Microsoft Windows operating system licenses for their products – were not allowed to install Netscape browsers on new PCs. Additionally, the Netscape browser cost money - Internet Explorer was free.

Netscape soon ceased to exist (but not without monstrous profits for its inventors and investors). Microsoft has won the “browser war.” Microsoft fell under the scrutiny of the US Department of Justice for using “predatory and exclusionary business practices” for forcing its Internet Explorer browser on PC manufacturers. During the federal hearings, Bill Gates was found to be obstructionist, evasive and dishonest. Microsoft was found to have systematically broken the law, its stocks plunged, and Bill Gates eventually resigned as CEO.

Bubble, Parts 1 & 2: Amazon.com and ebay unleashed an “economic upheaval” in the way commerce (specifically e-commerce) is conducted. Both Amazon.com and ebay were the result of creative tech-savvy thinkers intentionally setting out to create new ways of tapping the Web’s potential – Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com) looking at which items (i.e., books) are best-suited for sale via the internet, and Pierre Omidyar (ebay) looking at through which mechanism can people best obtain the items they want (no matter how obscure those items may be). Both Amazon.com and ebay were immediate runaway successes – and the employees had a sense that they were making history.

As breakthrough technologies create a “gold rush” mentality accompanied by rampant speculation, greed took over as more and more investors jumped on the rapid growth bandwagon. “Get big fast” became Amazon.com’s business goal. The development of public key cryptography facilitated secure selling via e-commerce. With proper marketing and image-correction, the IPOs of both ebay and Amazon.com resulted in exponential financial windfalls, public consciousness, and corporate growth – inspiring countless imitators.

“Day trading” became routine, gathering their information from CNBC market reports. Investment and spending often occurred with little or no business plan or expertise – pure speculation, in the event even one “dot com” became a runaway success. This “dot com” speculative bubble was technologically supported by the communications revolution in and proliferation of fiber optic network technology. Costs, consequences, and long-range feasibility of amortizing expenses didn’t seem to be at issue for either the “dot coms,” and millions of dollars were being spent on web sites that offered little or no return.

On April 14, 2000, the stock market collapsed in what became known as “Black Friday” – the largest single drop in the history of the stock market. Most “dot coms” died, the overall economy was severely negatively affected, $3.5 trillion in economic wealth disappeared as a result, and Martha Stewart and Henry Blodgett became scapegoats for having done business the way everyone else was doing it. But, as John Heilemann observed, even when the “dot com” bubble burst, we were left with a significantly upgraded infrastructure, built over 5-years instead over what would have been a much longer period. The current expanded fiber optic network, improved e-commerce capabilities, and the new innovations in entrepreneurship (to include the empowerment of the masses to realize their own uses for the Web) were the real and lasting benefits of the “dot com” decade.

[On a personal note – and without understanding the larger implication of my paycheck until I watched this video series – during these years I often did contract work as an off-duty police officer, working at construction sites in the Houston area where fiber optic cable was being bored under roadways. There were a lot of these sites, and there were about 50 or 60 of us in this labor pool of contracted off-duty officers. Most of us got used every day that we wanted to be (in my case that meant 2 or 3 days a week). We actually did very little traffic control, but were there mainly to be visible on site. The job paid $35/hour (in the 1990s!) for just sitting around, and we usually worked 12-18 hour days, sometimes more. Yup. It was a boom, alright – and even we police were seeing a windfall.]

Both Browser Wars and Bubble tell similar elemental stories, different only in the names of the players and the superficial trappings of how the stories outwardly manifest themselves. At their cores, though, the reports tell how technological advancements that start because of good, beneficial ideas always seem to get commandeered by get-rich-quick greed, by megalomania married to avaricious hegemony, and by enterprise-killing shortsightedness. Historically, that has been the way of things in major technological revolutions, whether it’s the whaling industry of the 1700s-1800s, the era of canal and railroad building, or the early days of the automobile. With this in mind, Google’s choice of “don’t be evil” as a corporate motto makes all the more sense – and provides for a worthy goal, as well. Let’s hope THAT idea spreads.