Since they weren't charging listeners, and they never had audio ads, it isn't a surprise they stopped paying for plays! They did happily sell CDs though, whic

Since they weren't charging listeners, and they never had audio ads, it isn't a surprise they stopped paying for plays! They did happily sell CDs though, which I bought a few of. Quite a few bands used MP3.com to promote their live shows as well. Entire genres of music thrived on MP3.com, and when the site went away, so did some of those genres, similar to how Soundcloud created entire new genres of music through community and discoverability.