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I feel like Napster started it but quickly other options like bittorrent and limewire took over within months. I never did understand how they made money worth

• Jtsummers 3y ago
  The acquisition was for the name, not for the (by then) shutdown service. Napster, the prior entity, was in bankruptcy when Roxio got the name.
• Larrikin 3y ago
  Was the time line this quick? As a kid I remember black Napster being amazing, then white Napster being the end. Then a mishmash of various programs like soul seek, direct connect, aimster, and dorm internal only iTunes/Lime wire until what emerged in the void of oink.
• d1sxeyes 3y ago
  The early 2000s were the wild west, Napster, LimeWire, Kazaa, BitTorrent, SoulSeek, eDonkey, as well as various websites like mp3.com/mp3.ru and so on. Napster was the easiest hydra to behead, and was shut down after just two years. Other services either existed in jurisdictions with different copyright laws (or a more lax approach to enforcement), or were by their nature too decentralised to shutdown. I don't recall ever seeing adverts on Napster, and as far as I understand, there was no monetisation plan, but I'm not 100% certain on that. I know that after they got fined they introduced a subscription model to try to pay off the fine, but I'm not sure whether that was the acceleration of a long term plan, or whether there was never any real plan or direction.