[krrrh]

Because the DOJ suit against MS was misguided and unnecessary. It had little effect on eroding Microsoft's supposed stranglehold on the browser market. When browser monoculture began to really hurt consumers and innovation the market found solutions through improved collaboration (W3C getting its act together, and developers embracing web standards), business model innovation (mozilla foundation embracing open source vs. Netscape charging $40 for a commercial license), and better technology and industry/community collaboration (khtml and webkit). Even some eventual deadends like Flash played a role at the time in routing around the untenable, but very temporary, situation of IE v.4-6 dominance.

Edit: I want to add that during the suit MS reps had a glib but prescient defense: "we think web browsers should be free". They meant as in beer, but they were right in the larger sense, and few would disagree with them today.

Netscape was arguing that their by-then totally crappy commercial browser deserved protection from the state, when their demise had a lot more to do with insane bloat and their embrace of groupware.