Some people accuse me of putting "embrace, extend, and extinguish" (#EEE) to a standard that is unfalsifiable.
First off, it doesn't matter whether or not EEE is unfalsifiable -- this was still a monopolistic strategy that Microsoft tried to employ to kill competition.
But as it happens, EEE actually did work on a few occasions. Most prominently with OS/2 Warp.
What many people don't realize is that IBM didn't merely make OS/2. It was a collaboration with Microsoft.
But Microsoft stabbed IBM in the back and made a competitive product called Windows. Perhaps you might have heard of it.
Much of Windows was based off OS/2. Windows even had a similar UI to OS/2.
Every part of EEE happened to OS/2. Microsoft embraced it. They extended it. And OS/2 was extinguished in 2001.
Why was this possible? I suspect a big reason is that OS/2 was proprietary, not open source.