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The reason why Winamp died wasn’t because of anything it did, but because more and more people moved to their phones for playing music. And ultimately mp3s lost

The reason why Winamp died wasn’t because of anything it did, but because more and more people moved to their phones for playing music. And ultimately mp3s lost out to streaming. That’s the only reason why Winamp died. It’s just a relic of the past, but in its day it was amazing. As an old guy I still use it. Asking a 10 year old to use Winamp to play an mp3 would be like asking a 20 year old to figure out how to use a rotary phone now.

kazinator 6y ago
> more and more people moved to their phones for playing music. And ultimately mp3s lost out to streaming. I listen to tunes with the Android version of Winamp. > Asking a 10 year old to use Winamp to play an mp3 You still need an application of some sort to play media. Are you saying that the pre-installed ones on mobile devices and desktop (e.g. Windows media player) are so vastly better than Winamp that Winamp looks like a rotary phone? > And ultimately mp3s lost out to streaming. I'm sorry, but that's not a well-considered statement. Albums are still a thing; people still collect music that they like. Streaming allows people who want to casually listen to music to use their device as one previously used a radio. (Speaking of which, streaming has not even killed radio yet.) A ten year old kid today can still understand that stream content won't always be there, and is inaccessible whenever you are out of mobile networking coverage, so you better capture your favorite material to your device.
- remote_phone 6y ago
  > Albums are still a thing; people still collect music that they like. Sorry but this is an ignorant statement about the current landscape. A tiny minority of people still buy mp3s or CDs. Most music these days are consumed via streaming. Just because you do it doesn’t mean that most other people do it. Even I still use Winamp and listen to mp3s but that doesn’t mean that most people still do.
  - kazinator 6y ago
    > A tiny minority of people still buy mp3s or CDs* My comment doesn't have anything to do with buying. I haven't bought a CD in some 25 years myself. People still play content stored in their device.
    - remote_phone 6y ago
      Sadly, the world doesn’t revolve around you. There has been 25 years of new music that had been created since you last bought a CD. You may pirate or purchase your mp3s, but even piracy has plummeted. And people who used to download mp3s found that they no longer needed to maintain music anymore if they paid a small subscription fee. Digital music sales are lower than physical CD sales, which is 5% of what it used to be back in 2000. The numbers speak for themselves.
audiometry 6y ago
I don’t remember that as true. Winamp started dying almost immediately after aol bought it and it was a long time before phones were storing or streaming music. There was a whole generation of iPods in between in fact.
- kazinator 6y ago
  Not just iPods, but cheap off-brand MP3 players, and support for MP3 in low-end consumer audio like "ghetto blasters" and automotive tuners.
mercer 6y ago
> The reason why Winamp died wasn’t because of anything it did, but because more and more people moved to their phones for playing music. I would've kept using Winamp if version 3 wasn't so bad, and I know many others like myself. So even if maybe eventually Winamp would've died for the reasons you mentioned, its initial problems were most definitely the result of what 'it did'.

kazinator 6y ago

> more and more people moved to their phones for playing music. And ultimately mp3s lost out to streaming. I listen to tunes with the Android version of Winamp. > Asking a 10 year old to use Winamp to play an mp3 You still need an application of some sort to play media. Are you saying that the pre-installed ones on mobile devices and desktop (e.g. Windows media player) are so vastly better than Winamp that Winamp looks like a rotary phone? > And ultimately mp3s lost out to streaming. I'm sorry, but that's not a well-considered statement. Albums are still a thing; people still collect music that they like. Streaming allows people who want to casually listen to music to use their device as one previously used a radio. (Speaking of which, streaming has not even killed radio yet.) A ten year old kid today can still understand that stream content won't always be there, and is inaccessible whenever you are out of mobile networking coverage, so you better capture your favorite material to your device.

remote_phone 6y ago
> Albums are still a thing; people still collect music that they like. Sorry but this is an ignorant statement about the current landscape. A tiny minority of people still buy mp3s or CDs. Most music these days are consumed via streaming. Just because you do it doesn’t mean that most other people do it. Even I still use Winamp and listen to mp3s but that doesn’t mean that most people still do.
- kazinator 6y ago
  > A tiny minority of people still buy mp3s or CDs* My comment doesn't have anything to do with buying. I haven't bought a CD in some 25 years myself. People still play content stored in their device.
  - remote_phone 6y ago
    Sadly, the world doesn’t revolve around you. There has been 25 years of new music that had been created since you last bought a CD. You may pirate or purchase your mp3s, but even piracy has plummeted. And people who used to download mp3s found that they no longer needed to maintain music anymore if they paid a small subscription fee. Digital music sales are lower than physical CD sales, which is 5% of what it used to be back in 2000. The numbers speak for themselves.

audiometry 6y ago

I don’t remember that as true. Winamp started dying almost immediately after aol bought it and it was a long time before phones were storing or streaming music. There was a whole generation of iPods in between in fact.

kazinator 6y ago
Not just iPods, but cheap off-brand MP3 players, and support for MP3 in low-end consumer audio like "ghetto blasters" and automotive tuners.

mercer 6y ago

> The reason why Winamp died wasn’t because of anything it did, but because more and more people moved to their phones for playing music. I would've kept using Winamp if version 3 wasn't so bad, and I know many others like myself. So even if maybe eventually Winamp would've died for the reasons you mentioned, its initial problems were most definitely the result of what 'it did'.