The Market for Web Browsing Functionality: What Does That World Look Like?

iv. The Market for Web Browsing Functionality 199. Since the World Wide Web was introduced to the public in 1991, the resources available on the Web have multiplied at a near-exponential rate. The Internet is becoming a true mass medium.

Every day Web resources are published, combined, modified, moved, and deleted. Millions of individuals and organizations have published Web sites, and Web site addresses are pervasive in advertising, promotion, and corporate identification.

200. The economics of the Internet, along with the flexible structure of Web pages, have made the Web the leading trajectory for the ongoing convergence of mass communications media. Many television and radio stations make some or all of their transmissions available on the Web in the form of static multimedia files or streaming media.

     
     

     Many newspapers, magazines, books, journals, public documents, and software programs are also published on the Web. Multimedia files on the Web have emerged as viable substitutes for many pre-recorded audio and video entertainment products.

     
     

     Web-based E-mail, discussion lists, news groups, “chat rooms,” paging, instant messaging, and telephony are all in common use. In addition to subsuming all other digital media, the Web also offers popular interactive and collaborative modes of communication that are not available through other media.

201. The use of Web browsers to conduct Web transactions has grown at pace with the growth of the Web, reflecting the immense value that subsists in the digital information resources that have become available on the Web.

     
     

     Consumer demand for software functionality that facilitates Web transactions, and the response by browser vendors to that demand, creates a market for Web browsing functionality.

     
     

     Although Web browsers are now generally not licensed at a positive price, all Web transactions impose significant costs on consumers, and all browser vendors, including Microsoft, have significant economic interests in maximizing usage of the browsing functionality they control.

     
     

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