4 ms·

Ask HN: What happened to Winamp?

11 points by vkdelta 17y ago

I was avid user of Winamp 12 years back when I was in high school. I am trying to figure why people really stopped using it? Shifted to different Mp3 players? or online audio/video?

sburgess 17y ago
Was that an app that came with Windows 95?
YuriNiyazov 17y ago
Same here. I think the reason why we used Winamp was because it was the fucking cool edgy underdog. After it was sold to AOL (which is as uncool as can possibly get) and got loaded up on corporate features, we moved on.
ctingom 17y ago
I think Napster happened, and frankly had a great music player interface (for it's day). Then iTunes came later and (at least back then) it was light and fast.
chaosmachine 17y ago
AOL bought Nullsoft. After that, it was pretty much all downhill. It went from an mp3 player to a mp3 player / video player / web browser / digital media library / online radio / toolbar / etc...
- runevault 17y ago
  I tend to agree with this line of thought. Winamp is so bloated feeling now. I recently switched to Foobar2000 and love it. I can play videos with a million other apps, just play my mp3s well!
- dryicerx 17y ago
  This. Along with no innovation on what it was suppose to do, which is play music easier/better. Instead of doing one thing simply and better, it tried to be the jack of all things multimedia and related. It bloated it's way to failure.
noonespecial 17y ago
I still used winamp classic/lite right up until I accidentally switched over to vlc. I installed vlc to play videos and noticed that it was playing mp3's and rtsp's as well, and it was good enough that I didn't bother to switch it back.
stan_rogers 17y ago
Bloated, yeah, but I still use it. Straightforward, categorized, text-based music library management and the ability to play cut/continuous tracks without a hiccup even with other disk IO going on(which is why I rejected the other simple players I've tried) keep it on my machine. (I should mention that I use FLAC almost exclusively, so the seamless prefetch makes more of a difference to me than it would to somebody playing MP3s.)
sidmitra 17y ago
Switched to Foobar2000. Easier to manage your library if it has more than 10K songs, and really light on memory.
mrphoebs 17y ago
Still use winamp with the enhancer DSP plugin.
- vkdelta 17y ago
  DFX?
po 17y ago
I heard that llamas everywhere joined into a class action lawsuit and filed suit for being whipped repeatedly. AOL, having newly acquired the company, decided to remove the llama whipping features, instead opting for non-llama-whipping ones.
jrockway 17y ago
Its interface did not really scale with peoples' music collections. Software with better library management eventually replaced it.
nokya 17y ago
Most colleagues at work listen to music from their iPod, not their workstation.
keefe 17y ago
Zinf ne Freeamp http://www.zinf.org/ http://www.zinf.org/ also showed up as an open source player after all the degradation others already discuss, I'm using Rhythmbox right now just out of laziness basically. I dunno what is going on in the lands of windows these days.
vkdelta 17y ago
Thanks for input guys!

11 points by vkdelta 17y ago

I was avid user of Winamp 12 years back when I was in high school. I am trying to figure why people really stopped using it? Shifted to different Mp3 players? or online audio/video?

sburgess 17y ago

Was that an app that came with Windows 95?

YuriNiyazov 17y ago

Same here. I think the reason why we used Winamp was because it was the fucking cool edgy underdog. After it was sold to AOL (which is as uncool as can possibly get) and got loaded up on corporate features, we moved on.

ctingom 17y ago

I think Napster happened, and frankly had a great music player interface (for it's day). Then iTunes came later and (at least back then) it was light and fast.

chaosmachine 17y ago

AOL bought Nullsoft. After that, it was pretty much all downhill. It went from an mp3 player to a mp3 player / video player / web browser / digital media library / online radio / toolbar / etc...

runevault 17y ago
I tend to agree with this line of thought. Winamp is so bloated feeling now. I recently switched to Foobar2000 and love it. I can play videos with a million other apps, just play my mp3s well!
dryicerx 17y ago
This. Along with no innovation on what it was suppose to do, which is play music easier/better. Instead of doing one thing simply and better, it tried to be the jack of all things multimedia and related. It bloated it's way to failure.

noonespecial 17y ago

I still used winamp classic/lite right up until I accidentally switched over to vlc. I installed vlc to play videos and noticed that it was playing mp3's and rtsp's as well, and it was good enough that I didn't bother to switch it back.

stan_rogers 17y ago

Bloated, yeah, but I still use it. Straightforward, categorized, text-based music library management and the ability to play cut/continuous tracks without a hiccup even with other disk IO going on(which is why I rejected the other simple players I've tried) keep it on my machine. (I should mention that I use FLAC almost exclusively, so the seamless prefetch makes more of a difference to me than it would to somebody playing MP3s.)

sidmitra 17y ago

Switched to Foobar2000. Easier to manage your library if it has more than 10K songs, and really light on memory.

mrphoebs 17y ago

Still use winamp with the enhancer DSP plugin.

vkdelta 17y ago
DFX?

po 17y ago

I heard that llamas everywhere joined into a class action lawsuit and filed suit for being whipped repeatedly. AOL, having newly acquired the company, decided to remove the llama whipping features, instead opting for non-llama-whipping ones.

jrockway 17y ago

Its interface did not really scale with peoples' music collections. Software with better library management eventually replaced it.

nokya 17y ago

Most colleagues at work listen to music from their iPod, not their workstation.

keefe 17y ago

Zinf ne Freeamp http://www.zinf.org/ http://www.zinf.org/ also showed up as an open source player after all the degradation others already discuss, I'm using Rhythmbox right now just out of laziness basically. I dunno what is going on in the lands of windows these days.

vkdelta 17y ago

Thanks for input guys!