The world before was still riding high on the euphoria of AJAX and Web 2.0, doing all kinds of whacky things that looked pretty but were completely unusable. Chrome was out there optimizing JavaScript processing so people could do more on the same hardware, and do more they did! It was a nightmare.

Bootstrap helped establish a baseline of usability both for end users and web developers. People who might have been tempted down the path of the latest unusable shiny were kept in line.