[simonh]

2001 was at an inflection point where it was very rapidly becoming clear that argument was archaic. In any case, the fact that everyone else was giving away browsers for free is hardly a great argument that Microsoft should be prevented distributing it for free also, and if they can why not let them bundle it?

The world of 2001 was very rapidly becoming the connected world we're in now, and imposing a restriction on anyone like that now would just seem ludicrous and in fact user hostile, as it was. To me and I think anyone else paying attention back then, that was very obvious.