Though AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy already had millions of subscribers and Microsoft had none, the incumbent online networks cried that Microsoft would surely monopolize the proprietary online market. Wisely, the Justice Department did not carry out its threat to stop Microsoft from introducing Windows 95 until the MSN icon had been removed. As subsequent events proved, projections of MSN's certain dominance of the proprietary online market were--well, somewhat exaggerated. In fact, according to the Nov. 5 Wall Street Journal, MSN has leveled off at 2.3 million subscribers, while AOL has 9 million (and that's before its acquisition of CompuServe). More significantly, all those doomsayers' projections of MSN dominance failed to anticipate the explosion of the Internet.