Of course, 20 years ago there were no smartphone platforms at all, no social networks, Internet Explorer was the dominant browser, Google was an upstart competing with search "portals" like Yahoo, a 3dfx Voodoo card was the hot thing to have, Apple was nearly dead, and Amazon was a place to buy books and CDs.
At the time people thought Microsoft was so dominant that most of the innovations of the past 20 years could not have happened, because Microsoft was a behemoth that would simply take over any competitors. But they lost on search, phones, browsers, etc.
I don't really see how it's different this time around. There is currently no company as dominant over the entire industry as Microsoft was in 2000, or as dominant as IBM was in 1980.
At the time people thought Microsoft was so dominant that most of the innovations of the past 20 years could not have happened, because Microsoft was a behemoth that would simply take over any competitors. But they lost on search, phones, browsers, etc.
I don't really see how it's different this time around. There is currently no company as dominant over the entire industry as Microsoft was in 2000, or as dominant as IBM was in 1980.