[mpol]

The fact is, after releasing IE6 around the year 2000, MS dissolved the IE team. Only around 2006 a new team was formed to create IE7 (which wasn't much better).

Conspiracy mixed with facts is... At the end of the nineties, Netscape was pushing to make the browser the platform, instead of the desktop. MS was quite worried about that, they had a monopoly on the desktop and used that to create a monopoly with their browser, so Netscape had no chance to do what they wanted. MS succeeded, as in delayed the process, it took maybe 15 years, after the death of Netscape and the rise of Google, to have Google and others make a platform out of the browser. Having the web stagnate and locked in to a browser like IE6 was for MS a desirable situation.

[justinlardinois]

So it's conjecture. Going by Occam's razor, Microsoft just had no need to innovate because it had no competition.

[mpol]

And they had no competition because they had it destroyed with illegal practices. And all they got fined with was a slap on the wrist while earning billions.

More ontopic... IE6 was slightly better than Netscape 4, so almost everyone switched to IE6. Just as now Chrome is only slightly better than Firefox to a lot of people (not to me though). And a lot of people are switching to Chrome. If you trust Google (an advertising company) to not play the same tricks as MS did, then good luck with your Google Chrome :). Once Google has a lock on the browser market, who knows what will happen. Another lock-in, and more years of stagnation. Yes, more conspiracy :).

[fixermark]

Stagnation like Chromecast?

Google has market incentive to improve on the browser's capabilities that Microsoft did not.

[endemic]

I think Chromecast would fall under the "lock in" category.

[fixermark]

I don't know why it would.

https://github.com/googlecast/