Comment by peterarmstrong
8 years ago
This is a good point in general and about the PC in particular, but it is totally wrong about Netscape.
The complement of a web browser isn't the web servers, it's the OS--and vice versa. So, Netscape tries to commoditize the OS, and MS commoditized and destroyed the browser market, and then nearly themselves with antitrust.
Also, Netscape was initially free in the early days, but had become a product which cost money until IE came out and was free. The plan was not "free browser". (Read Ben Horowitz's book...)
Several things can be complements, it just depends on how you perceive them.
In Netscape's case, their strategy shifted from selling web browsers to consumers in the hope of commoditizing the OS [0] to selling more web servers to businesses, after Microsoft made it impossible for them to compete[1] with IE which was offered for free.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape#History_of_the_Netsca...
[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/netscape-cuts-prices-on-retail-pro...