Do you remember… Napster?

A search box, a list of songs sitting on strangers’ computers, and a little column showing how fast each stranger’s connection was. You typed in a track, picked someone with a decent line and watched the download creep along. On dial-up, one song could take most of an evening, and there was a fair chance it would turn out to be a completely different song.

Napster was launched in June 1999 by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, and it swept through university halls at astonishing speed. At its peak it had around 80 million registered users. The record industry wasn’t delighted. Metallica sued, the record labels sued, and in July 2001 Napster went offline, with a court order keeping it that way.

It lasted barely two years, but music never went back to how it was. In a roundabout way, every streaming service since has been an answer to Napster.