Earlier quoted context omitted.
More accurately, before Microsoft cared about the Internet.
No, not just that, but before the idea that most systems would be internet connected. NT's design was started in 1989 and 3.1 was released in 1993 - development started a full 7 years before the idea of a connected world was commonplace, and a full 12 years before wide deployment of broadband. Whatever comes along that is a clean break with NT, and Unix - will have these assumptions built in.
It's like trying to introduce outlets and circuit breakers to folks used to just hot wiring directly to the grid.
The idea of the OS directly enforcing the will of the user(through power boxes that return handles/capabilities, instead of dialogs that return names) takes a little adjustment.