Did that gap between Napster's introduction and iTunes cause a long lasting mark on the entertainment industries? People claim tht the reason Napster was so wildly successful at its introduction was because of how easy it was to get music at the time from it in comparison to go to the store. Napster (and later Limewire) were found on the computers of pretty much most college/high school student's computers.

People completely stopped buying music because even though people had sold boot leg CDs in the 90s, there was a much larger and easier library of music to pick from on Napster and Kazaa. That's essentially what Steve Jobs sought to fix with iTunes. Since the iPod became wildly successful also, people became compelled to buy music from the proprietary software for the iPod. Apple and later Amazon had sought out to make buying music so easy that people wouldn't want to search for other methods. That roughly 4 year gap (from Napster to iTunes)!was still too large and younger people still sought out to illegally download music from other sources.


Do you think the public being exposed to those illegal sources of getting music for so long (before iTunes) ended up essentially ****ing up the movie and music industries for a decade?

Of course

Napster's shutdown by the RIAA was one of the most impactful things in the last decade tbh.

It definitely did.

Everyone always forgets about Kazaa. When Napster was taken down, Kazaa reigned supreme till Limewire came about about. Glad to see the OP mention the site.

I only used Limewire and Kazaa when I was like 9

Napster was not convenient though. It took like a day to download one song over dial up.

Music sales would've plummeted anyway. Labels were not releasing physical singles and they made you buy a whole album just for one song you liked. People would've found a way at some point. So Napster was a good thing it brought the industry down a couple notches. They should've known their greed was going to bite them.

I've bought more music because of pirating than I ever would have otherwise. I own several hundred vinyl records and probably twice as many CDs, many of which are from countries whose music I wouldn't have heard without "illegal" downloads. True music lovers still buy without trouble.

Yes. That, Kazaa, Limewire, Frostwire and BearShare.

I've used them all when I was a kid.

Absolutely. People become a ingrained with the idea that they can get free music easily. And they still can.

It needs to be limited tbh

Of course

Anything is inconvenient on dial up though.