The dot-com bubble wasn't about SaaS companies but internet companies as such, basically everything with a .com address. Hence the name.
It was more about e-commerce than SaaS.
Especially because of the internet data rate in the late 90s.
What it was "more about" is irrelevant the point is there was plenty of SaaS, and plenty of options to host them without owning servers. Many of us here we're around and running internet companies at the time.
The quote also says "web-based". Anyways the point is that web/internet businesses were common and growing rapidly way before any modern IaaS provider.
