In late November 20 years ago, the end was at hand for the early Web’s most intriguing, flamboyant, and influential startup company — the one with the name that was pitch-perfect for the emerging digital landscape: Netscape.
The name offered a hints of the dreamy and the exotic, suggesting as it did that the World Wide Web was open for exploration in a benign and welcoming way. The opportunities online seemed limitless then, and Netscape and its graphical Web browser Navigator were showing the way.
Such sentiments seem distant now, as does the memory of Netscape. Its acquisition by AOL.com was announced November 24, 1998, in an all-stock deal completed in 1999. The 20th anniversary of word of AOL’s takeover has been little remembered, and sadly so given Netscape’s lasting contributions and influences.
The tech graveyard is filled with 1990s startups and their dashed ambitions. Think of AltaVista
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Calculus of Decay 