RE: Later, Navigator: How Netscape Won and Then Lost the World Wide Web
My first browser was the Netscape predecessor - NCSA Mosaic - on SunOS, and I had to download and compile it for myself and everyone in the office. "Discovering" Mosaic is still one of my favorite technology memories, on par with when I learned about blockchain. Andreessen was still at NCSA at the time, and Netscape hadn't even launched yet.
I will try to read the linked article tomorrow or later in the week, but my recollection is that Netscape faded away after it got bought by AOL, and they stopped innovating. In retrospect, I guess they were probably cash-strapped after the AOL/Time Warner merger and subsequent dotcom bubble collapse.
All these years later, Netscape is gone, but AOL is still hanging on (in some form), and I still use the same AOL email address that I created around 1995 or 1996.
lol it's fascinating that you still have that email address.
If I recall from the article, you're close to correct about what happened. The article adds something about Microsoft squashing Netscape in their attempt to dominate.
I feel the same way about Mozilla in general; that they don't innovate very well. They sort of keep up, I guess... but I'd love to see them push the market a bit. There's a lot of valuable positioning in terms of keeping the web open, democratizing, etc. but their products never seem to quite make the grade in bringing any of that to the mainstream.
I agree about Mozilla. It seems like Brendan Eich was their main innovative force. Now Brave is rising and Mozilla is stumbling.