10 Comments

>>> When Internet Explorer 6 came out in 2001, it was great. [...] ... the Dotcom bubble would ensue.

Not quite right. The bubble started in the mid-1990s, and was just about ready to burst in 2001.

I quite agree with your larger point about browser monoculture, though.

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In the stock market sense yes, but really Google was born in 1998 and took years before it reached a cruising size, so the enthusiasm and tech revolution really peaked circa 2000.

Maybe using the word bubble was a wrong move, it conveys the economic sense but that's not what I wanted to convey.

What would you choose instead?

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I can't think of how to restructure what you said. I guess I just would not have equated IE6 with the dotcom boom (or bubble).

Also, while I will grant that the boom peaked ~2000 (right before the bubble burst), it's not clear to me that there was any causal relationship between IE6 and the rapid Web-related growth of that time.

Some good timeline data here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

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Changed it to "ridding the DotCom bubble." Less confusing.

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Yes, IE6 certainly didn't carry the economic bubble, which was mostly speculative.

It did help tremendously with the technical innovations of the products that survived it.

Having Ajax alone in JS land made so many new things possible.

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Given how much exposure I had to web devs hating IE6, it's hard for me to remember anything that was good about it. ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_6#Criticism

I did not know about the Ajax aspect. I do remember some friends whose jobs were largely focused on building for Intranet sites liking IE6 a lot, though.

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Active X was a blessing and a curse. You could manipulate the OS from a simple web page. But... You could manipulate the OS from a simple web page.

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That concept was pretty cool! If only there were no bad guys online, right? ;)

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Like they always say, all good things must come to an end ✌️

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Sometimes it's necessary to go through a phase of destruction, the cleaning is too difficult or impossible. Life mostly works that way. But it's very unpleasant for the generation that lives it. And since I'm living it, I vote to give a try to the least painful path.

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