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Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

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Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#91

Post by Assumer »

nitrogen wrote: post #85
sandworm101 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> ... to digital abundance. Really? Spotify and Netflix pale in comparison to what Napster was. For all the content you think you have access to, Napster gave us the ability to see what other people had stored on their drives, stuff that they wanted to share rather than whatever media Spotify has a license for. That opened a world of discovery unmatched by any streaming service, or all of them put together. Want a c…

No streaming site will ever have licenses for the bizarre remixes of video game themes, or the Sesame Street theme, that made their way around Napster. More than the music, though, Napster had chat rooms where you could get legit recommendations of new music that far exceeded the recommendation engines of today.

Grooveshark came close, but it was always going to get shut down

Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#92

Post by c0nducktr »

nitrogen wrote: post #88
ativzzz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like bitcoin mining without making money

SETI@home and Folding@home at least provided intrinsic value from their computations. It'd be nice if we could have a coin based on protein folding or climate simulations or something.

There's at least one coin that does that. It's a Nano clone (not sure if clone is the right word), called Banano.

You "mine" it by joining their folding@home team, and you get banano based on how many folding@home work units you complete. It's pre-mined though, so maybe that doesn't quite fit.

There was another cryptocurrency I remember which was mildly popular years ago called Primecoin, which attempted to find a certain type of prime numbers. It's interesting, but I'm not sure if it ever provided any actual usefulness from the work performed.

I don't see any reason that a cryptocurrency couldn't be tied to something like protein folding or climate simulations. People just don't choose to do so.

Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#93

Post by ryandrake »

torben-friis wrote: post #7

There was something about piracy in the times of Napster, emule and the like. It really made you feel like you knew some incantation to get access to the whole world's information. In practical terms, I have access to far more content now (music on Spotify, shows and movies on streaming services, tutorials, online classes, etc) and yet our reach doesn't seem as wide as it seemed in those times. Perhaps it was just th…

You got a brief, glorious whiff of what a world without artificial scarcity is like. We'll get another whiff when someone invents Star Trek style replicators, before they are also outlawed by the moneyed interests who benefit from lack of abundance.

Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#94

Post by riffraff »

dharmab wrote: post #60
grensley wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If it ever gets too bad, they'll just steal again" should hang on the wall of every media distribution company. Consolidation efforts like Netflix prevented piracy, but the splintering of streaming services has encouraged it, and sports (and especially football) has become the great fulcrum. Pirating sports is huge right now, because their distribution is an anti-consumer mess. Cable is using them to cling for dear…

F1's online presence under Liberty Media is a great example of how to do it right. Every race gets same-day highlights on YouTube within hours, along with tons of interview and analysis content. You can be an F1 fan and not spend a penny to watch the entire season. But the premium option to watch full events live is still there, along with merchandising, (quite good) licensed video games, etc. As a result, F1 is grow…

I'm not sure about that. The Serie A (Italian football/soccer) also puts same-hour highlights on YouTube within hours, but people still use illegal streaming all the time.

You lose a lot by not following a sport in real time, especially if such sport is part of your social environment, and likewise you lose a lot if you just see highlights.

For an example of a perfect digital play, I think the America's Cup would be it: live streaming, analysis, interviews, replays, highlights.

It competes directly with tv streaming, but it can do that because it has a much smaller following.

Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#95

Post by consumer451 »

Assumer wrote: post #91
nitrogen wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No streaming site will ever have licenses for the bizarre remixes of video game themes, or the Sesame Street theme, that made their way around Napster. More than the music, though, Napster had chat rooms where you could get legit recommendations of new music that far exceeded the recommendation engines of today.

Grooveshark came close, but it was always going to get shut down

Hotline was pretty exciting. Did anyone else here get involved with this? [0]

Back when broadband had just hit Seattle I ran a server on an old PowerPC

IA paraphrased quote from a user:

> I am actually signed to TVT records but it this server’s contents that enables my creativity.

These days I pay for everything, but that testament to digital freedom sticks with me.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotline_Communications

Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#96

Post by mustacheemperor »

sandworm101 wrote: post #81
torben-friis wrote: post #7

There was something about piracy in the times of Napster, emule and the like. It really made you feel like you knew some incantation to get access to the whole world's information. In practical terms, I have access to far more content now (music on Spotify, shows and movies on streaming services, tutorials, online classes, etc) and yet our reach doesn't seem as wide as it seemed in those times. Perhaps it was just th…

>> ... to digital abundance. Really? Spotify and Netflix pale in comparison to what Napster was. For all the content you think you have access to, Napster gave us the ability to see what other people had stored on their drives, stuff that they wanted to share rather than whatever media Spotify has a license for. That opened a world of discovery unmatched by any streaming service, or all of them put together. Want a c…

What.CD is another unparalleled archive that is now gone for good. Rips of old beat tapes from the 90s, obscure electronica releases, all kinds of stuff that it seems won’t ever be found anywhere else.

Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#97

Post by imiric »

marcodiego wrote: post #31
peterburkimsher wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Windows, Audiogalaxy. And on Mac, Poisoned! With support for FastTrack (Kazaa), Gnutella (Limewire), OpenFT, OpenNap, and eMule. But dial-up was too slow, so it was usually quicker to repair a friend's iPod and make a backup using iPodRip or Senuti.

I think audiogalaxy was the real pioneer in p2p. Audiogalaxy satellite, IIRC, ran an ftp server on your machine while at the same time indexed your files and sent the list to audiogalaxy, the web service. From there, anyone could search for mp3 and download from users currently on-line. It was the begining. It soon became very clear the problems of centralization for this purpose, decentralized networks thrived. Most…

Audiogalaxy felt magical to use at the time. Being able to leave the Satellite running at home, queue up songs to download from school via the web site, and listen to them by the time you're back home, was... incredible. There was truly nothing like it back then.

It also had a much larger indie community than Napster. I discovered so much good music on Ag that I still listen today.

Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#98

Post by still_grokking »

ryandrake wrote: post #93
torben-friis wrote: post #7

There was something about piracy in the times of Napster, emule and the like. It really made you feel like you knew some incantation to get access to the whole world's information. In practical terms, I have access to far more content now (music on Spotify, shows and movies on streaming services, tutorials, online classes, etc) and yet our reach doesn't seem as wide as it seemed in those times. Perhaps it was just th…

You got a brief, glorious whiff of what a world without artificial scarcity is like. We'll get another whiff when someone invents Star Trek style replicators, before they are also outlawed by the moneyed interests who benefit from lack of abundance.

We have already "Star Trek style replicators", at least for information. They're called "digital computers".

But humanity isn't ready to handle that it seems.

Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#99

Post by poulsbohemian »

I vaguely recall there was some kind of chat built in to Napster and it was the era when people did sometimes turn off their computers and/or where in some countries they paid by the minute for internet. I recall getting a message from a German on the other side of the world that I was able to read and respond to because I just happen to speak German letting me know he was headed to bed but that he'd leave his computer on so I could finish grabbing my files. Those are the kind of quirky interactions I miss about the good old days. Likewise, the chats and email exchanges in the early 90s before this web thing came along. There were relatively few people on the internet, so the signal to noise was strong and it was easy to connect with experts.

Re: Napster.com banned at some universities for clogging networks (2000)

#100

Post by eredengrin »

mdturnerphys wrote: post #89

I have one memory of Napster. My senior year of HS, 2000-2001, one of my teachers told me I could skip an assignment in exchange for helping her install it on her (school-owned) computer. It would make a better story if the class was Ethics, but it was pretty close--World Religions.

I love the layers of irony here...The natural assumption to make here is it would be ironic for an ethics teacher to be using napster, but in fact the real irony (imo) is that it is in fact a very interesting ethical question when it comes to pirating. Not something I intend to discuss here but it is something interesting I think about semi-frequently.
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