IE actually created many of the standards we take for granted like XMLHttpRequest. [1] It was the innovator for a long time until priorities changed and the IE team was disbanded leading to the stagnation.

Microsoft definitely takes the blame in keeping it poor for so long but this situation is nothing like Safari which has refused to implement standards that already exist, as well as messing with others in unintuitive ways.

1. https://schepp.dev/posts/today-the-trident-era-ends/