History is littered with examples of dominant forces that later fell by the wayside.
The Roman Empire, Disco Music, Dallas Cowboys,
and so it is in the tech world, which is why we created the first episode
of our something part series, Where Are They Now?
To kick things off, we're gonna look at some of the ways that we all used to enjoy digital media
before Spotify and YouTube came along, starting with the venerable real player from real networks.
If you grew up in the 90s, you probably used real player at some point,
whether it was to listen to music or watch a video clip,
as it was one of the very first streaming applications
to gain widespread popularity. In fact, the first ever sporting event
streamed live online was over real audio back in 1995.
Of course, the real in real audio probably oversold the player's capabilities.
During real player zenith in the late 1990s and early 2000s,
most people were running painfully slow dial-up connections,
which meant that their streams were often fairly low quality,
assuming they worked at all. And real player was notorious for being a clunky,
error-prone program that was jam-packed full of advertising.
But it was still a piece of tech that most people tolerated
because few other programs delivered streaming media.
That is, until Microsoft and Apple started providing their own streaming software
in their consumer operating systems and also made streaming software freely available
for administrators who previously had been forced
to pay real networks to get this functionality on the servers for their websites.
And then as time went on, standards like Adobe Flash made the clunky real player more and more irrelevant.
But believe it or not, real player is actually still around today
as a general purpose media player supported by ads and subscription fees.
Even if the general consensus is that other media players
like VLC accomplished the same tasks in a simpler package.
Bottom line, I don't see real player making a big comeback anytime soon.
Next up, Winamp, which was a more general purpose music player
than real player. Debuting in 1997, it quickly caught on with PC users
around the globe and eventually boasted a user base
of around 90 million. Right out of the gate,
people loved its resource-late operation, its incredible customizability.
Guys, Winamp's skins were big way before CSGO ones.
And it's ease of use. All you had to do to build a playlist was select
and drag some MP3s into Winamp and boom, you could be your own personal DJ.
It was a really cool idea at the time. Unsurprisingly, Winamp's demise
was largely the work of bigger companies. AOL bought Winamp in 1999
and used it as a vehicle for expanding its own internet service
by asking users to sign up for AOL whenever they tried to install Winamp.
Despite the fact that AOL's parent company could have just made money
by offering their huge music library to Winamp users instead.
What an idea. And since many Winamp users were music enthusiasts
and power users who cared about audio quality and the overall listening experience,
the integrated AOL ads and the fact that their beloved player
had been taken over by a company known for a sandboxed internet service was pretty off-putting.
Combined with the iPods release in 2001, which required rival program iTunes to function,
Winamp was never able to fully realize its potential.
Though its user base actually kept growing until 2007
thanks to its popularity with users outside of the US
where it was developed. Winamp was eventually sold to a Belgian company
and an updated beta appeared in 2016 with another update in 2018.
A new version is actually expected sometime this year, but the many years of neglect combined
with the popularity of modern streaming audio services means that while Winamp still has
about 30 million users worldwide, it's unlikely to recapture its past glory.
Finally, there's possibly the most infamous of them all,
Napster, a file sharing service that quickly became known
as a hotbed for music piracy. The basic idea behind Napster was that it allowed users
to directly download music from the computers of other users, suddenly giving the public access
to tons of free music, including hard to find tracks.
So all you needed to do to be the cool kid in class was to know how to use Napster and have a CD burner.
Of course, the record companies sued Napster and won
because the courts found that while Napster wasn't providing the music itself,
it was aware that copyright infringement was going on on its network and had the ability
to stop it, but failed to do so. This differs from torrent applications like Qubit Torrent,
which only allow users to connect to any of thousands
of servers that provide tracker files. It's a much less centralized approach
and a more difficult target. After the original Napster was forced to shut down,
the Napster logo and brand actually lived on. They were purchased and have since changed hands
a few times with each subsequent owner attempting
to capitalize on Napster's name recognition to sell licensed music, both on a per song basis
and through a subscription model. Napster was eventually bought by Rhapsody
and actually still exists today as a streaming music service with a monthly fee
similar to Apple Music. So I guess it goes to show you guys,
if Napster can go legit, anyone can.
Okay, fair point, except you guys.
So thanks for watching guys. Like, check out our other videos, subscribe,
and I will see you next time. I won't see you, I can't see you, it's a camera lens.