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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
by 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.