Thanks for sharing this. I recall Salon being a competitor of Slate, and one thrived, and the other completely floundered. I'd wondered why.
it was also the era when Microsoft was trying to expand it's dominance in software into new realms as well as into media such as Slate and MSNBC.
See this 1996 cover of Wired Magazine: https://www.originalmagazines.com/products/wired-magazine-ju...
I think it was more of a defensive play. Keep in mind that Microsoft saw the web as a threat. Gates was worried that the browser will undermine their OS monopoly (which it eventually did). Gates launched a bunch of web sites including Slate, HomeAdvisor, CarPoint, Sidewalk, Expedia, MSNBC and so on, and told the world that he didn't expect any of these sites to be profitable any time soon, which in my opinion, was intended to dissuade others from investing in the web.
A sticker, a suck-branded Gold Circle Coin condom, and something else that I can't recall right now. (I still have the sticker on an old ammo can.)
Solid collectible, right there.-
And if you bend the rules a bit, Bianca's Smut Shack might sort-of count too - probably the first truly great website of any sort.
FWIW they had it in for Trump from the start.
The big difference though is that Slate has always had corporate ownership, first by Microsoft and then by Graham Holdings. It's never really had to stand on its own feet.