June 1, 1999, was the day the music industry died. Or, at least, it was the day its near-death experience was put into motion. The music-sharing app Napster launched 22 years ago this month, enabling for the first time the mass sharing of digital files. And that, in turn, upended customers' behaviors, encouraged large-scale music piracy and created an existential crisis that took the recording business more than a decade to reckon with. Thanks to Napster, the business model underpinning the music industry collapsed, forever changing the way we consume music.
Napster vs the Music Industry: HISTORY's Moments in Media
