Definitely wasn&#x27;t the sole reason, their server software generally sucked, e.g. a lot of people happily switched to Apache once it was perceived as being sufficiently trustworthy.  I could see the latter happening in the 1995-6 period.<p>One thing I&#x27;ve read about the rewrite is that Netscape accuihired? (back before that was a word) a failed company, and put its failed managers in charge, who I guess were good at what really counts in the short term (looking out for themselves).  An obvious corollary to the &quot;don&#x27;t do a rewrite&quot; is &quot;if you&#x27;re going to do one, employ really good people to do it&quot;.