It might be hard to imagine in a world where open source mostly won, but in the 90s Microsoft essentially had a de facto monopoly over the computer industry.

Mac OS was a thing, but it was different and expensive enough that it was not really a viable alternative to Windows 95 for most people. Solaris and HPUX existed, but were not accessible to home users. The alternative platforms of the late 80s (Atari, Amiga, Acorn) had pretty much died out by the mid 90s. Linux was very much a thing, but without a viable web browser it was really tricky to use on a day to day basis... and the only really viable web browser was Internet Explorer, so you ended up dual booting to Windows. If you (I) wanted to use a computer, that's how it was.

In short, the kind of monopoly that Apple has with its App Stores affects some consumers in some ways, but the kind of monopoly that Microsoft had in the 90s affected almost every computer user in almost every way.