> Winamp could have been Spotify but went in a completely different directions I'm not so sure how successful that really would have been. There is a significa

> Winamp could have been Spotify but went in a completely different directions I'm not so sure how successful that really would have been. There is a significant gap between Winamp falling out of favor and the rise of Spotify. The obvious winner in that gap wasn't any streaming service, it was Apple. The gap is basically defined as the period between when the iPod became ubiquitous and when the iPhone became ubiquitous. Granted, there is a few year period between when the iPhone was released and when streaming took over. Spotify-like streaming services like Rhapsody existed during that gap but they weren't compatible with the iPod and even players they were compatible required a pretty cumbersome process in order to sync and listen offline. I think Rhapsody enjoyed a relatively brief period when smartphones became available and they could stream from there but it was a no-brainer to switch to Spotify once they launched in the U.S.