Rhapsody Decides It’s A Great Idea To Rename Itself Napster

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Yikes! Maybe I'm just old but I'm not sure using the Napster name is a good idea. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name Napster? It certainly isn't "legitimate" online music service. ;)

“Same music. Same service. Same price. 100% the music you love. Stay tuned!” the post reads. Rhapsody has been around since the early days of streaming music, starting as a streaming audio engine called Aladdin in 1999 before it emerged under new ownership with its current name in 2001. But despite its veteran status and the addition of Napster to the company fold in 2011, Rhapsody has been struggling to compete with upstarts in the streaming business like Spotify.


 
Darunion said:
First thing that came to mind was spending 20minutes to download a single 128kbit mp3 lol.
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Ah, the good old days....

I still remember trying to download the demo for Myth: The Fallen Lords with this bad boy (I still have it...)

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From what I remember it took over 6 hours to download the ~50MB file.
 
NeoNemesis : Heh, I still have a 33.6 external modem in my closet too. Don't know why. I don't even have a computer that has a serial port any more...

I bought a USB 56k fax modem for like $15 a couple years ago, convinced I would need to fax something to someone after my all in one printer (with integrated fax!) died. I have not opened the box, it sits in my closet and collects dust.

But hey the way Frontier is screwing up FIOS lately I might need to bust out the 56k and go back to dialup someday...

Re: Napster.... I was more of a Kazaa guy.
 
Burticus said:
NeoNemesis : Heh, I still have a 33.6 external modem in my closet too. Don't know why. I don't even have a computer that has a serial port any more...

I bought a USB 56k fax modem for like $15 a couple years ago, convinced I would need to fax something to someone after my all in one printer (with integrated fax!) died. I have not opened the box, it sits in my closet and collects dust.

But hey the way Frontier is screwing up FIOS lately I might need to bust out the 56k and go back to dialup someday...

Re: Napster.... I was more of a Kazaa guy.
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I was actually thinking of getting dialup for the cottage to monitor temperature, but in the end it was cheaper/easier just to buy a freeze alarm. I honestly can't imagine what I'd use it for these days but I keep it for sentimental reasons.

Kazaa / Morpheus / etc... those were the days.
 
I thought downloading music by questionable means is what all the kewl kids did today. Seems like this is a great idea. Go back to the Grand daddy that help start it all. Except no one will use it because, well it's what grandpa used and no one wants to use what grandpa used.
 
My area got DSL right around the time Napster started to get a groundswell. I was in college and had some big speakers hooked up to my computer. At parties, people would yell out requests. Thanks to Napster, we'd have nearly any song you could think of in 2-3 minutes. It was a golden age, although with YouTube you can more or less still do that.
 
We still buy and use new USR 56k modems at my work. It's pretty funny to see them still being used.

Personally, I think Napster is a much more marketable name than rhapsody; especially to the younger generation, who never actually got to originally use it.

As an average teen, what would be cooler to spend your parent's money on? iTunes that your mom uses, or the old school "pirate" app that was always on the wrong side of the law?
 
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wtburnette said:
Rhapsody is still around? Who knew?
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I didn't, until T-Mobile gave me the basic Rhapsody streaming deal for "free" as part of my monthly plan. I used it once and never went back to it so they really didn't make much of an impression over their competition. Then again, so long as you're paying for them, pretty much every music streaming service is basically the same these days.
 
I was lucky enough to be living in NYC when Napster was huge. I used Metconnect, a free NYC dialup ISP before switching to Verizon DSL. I rather not say how much I used Napster and for those that that remember, Hotline lol. Man how much I loved Hotline in the early 2000's.
 
Didn't work when Roxio tried it with PressPlay. Didn't work when Best Buy tried their own service. Won't work now.
 
They just signed their own death warrant. Napster "went legit" by becoming a paid music service and died almost instantly.
 
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