https://www.os2museum.com/wp/why-does-windows-really-use-bac... does a deep dive into the reasons for the choice, which seems more to do with backwards compatibility with DOS 1.0.
Win95 wasn't built on a base that had security in mind. And when the Win95 feature set was created, the world wide web wasn't in that list. TCP/IP wasn't either iirc. Dialup access was the main onramp to the internet. MSN was supposed to be Microsoft's main way to get users on to the internet (to fight against AOL).
If you don't have internet access, where is your malware coming from?
Floppies? No wifi to attack your printers.
Much easier to deal with a strange poisonous floppy the few times that you are given one than the 24/7 defenses needed when your box is ON the internet.
Well, Win95 was hobbled with the MSDOS base which was mainly concerned with CP/M familiarity when first designed. That's why Microsoft was working on windowsNT.