In the mid-1990s, cookies became a standard in managing state within web applications, with Netscape Communications adopting the term "cookies" for this protocol after its founding engineer, Lou Montulli, was inspired by fortune cookies. For over 25 years, cookies have remained a dominant option for state management in web development, but modern microservices like Twilio Sync are now offering alternative solutions such as real-time syndication and increased security to PHP applications. Various tutorials and resources are available online to help developers learn more about these options and implement them in their own projects.