Napster

The times, they are a’changing, I guess. Napster has gone entirely fee-based. The service will be a flop, no doubt. They are riding on a new type of file format, .NAP, instead of .MP3 to run their service. This sounds remarkably similar to LiquidAudio, doesn’t it? What the heck happened to that anyway…

I have to say, good luck, Napster, but don’t expect me to buy into the hype.

Here’s why it will fail: the everyday Joe will make a MP3 over a NAP. Duh. Nobody is going to rip NAP files. Napster relied on distribution from people, not the record industry.

Napster will only succeed if users download directly from the record labels. And why the heck would we use Napster to do that?