Hah. They *gained* a lot from this. This is roughly equivalent to
dumping: put something good out there dirt cheap, kill the
competition, establish oneself as *the* place to go, and then start
charging a "reasonable" amount. Also, if a large number of people use
the free browser, then it is in the interest of businesses to supply
their people with the same tool to avoid training costs. Any fool can
see that this is also being justified by the $ on the bottom line.
*That* is business.
One thing you should remember: the WWW is potentially going to develop
into something vast, and something all-pervasive. Even a small step
wrong now could cause a lot of trouble later. While a clear separation
of style and structure causes short term difficulties due to immature
technology at the browser and protocol levels, in the long run, the
benefits will be enormous. We need to deal with information as
information, not as images (though display is also important). Adding
tags whose only purpose is to produce some visual, and GUI specific
effect, is not the way to go.