I don't think you need ZIRP or even VC to have successful software companies that reinvest in features. You need a low marginal cost of manufacturing, aka the floppy disk.
Yep, and then CDROMs really bumped it up to the next level for Microsoft.
Pop music CD's had been popular for years before data CDROMs became available and more common.
Stars like Michael Jackson were raking in the bucks and their record companies even more.
Then by the mid '90's Windows was too sizable and unwieldy for most people to install from floppy any more, and consumer PCs started having CD reader/players standard.
Microsoft CDs started flying off the shelf at 10x the retail price the record companies were charging for music CD's.
