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1.  

   Viability?

   

   Richard, May 8th, 2000 @ 11:01am

   
   

   If you are willing to accept that music will be distributed digitally in the near term future, along with an assumption of about a 40% adoption rate by consumers, then you have to ask the question of sustainability. Is what napster is, a sustainable methodology for distribution of entertainment media? Today, definitely not. In the future? Any guesses?

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2.  

   Re: Viability?

   

   Mike (profile), May 8th, 2000 @ 12:18pm

   
   

   That depends on what you mean by sustainable. Could you continue to distribute music this way? Certainly. Will everyone be happy about it. No way. However, the fact is that the folks behind Napster came up with a somewhat revolutionary idea on the distribution of music that made it easy to find music you were looking for, while building a community where people could talk to each other and get ideas on new music to listen to and things like that. What I'm saying is that they're not a dumb bunch, and I'd watch to see what they do next... I'm not saying they'll have the right answer, but if I had to take a guess, I'd say they're ideas will be worth taking a close look at. The question is, though, once Napster matures a little won't everyone just call them "sellouts" and move on to the latest Napster clone? It's going to be interesting to see how Napsters handles that problem...

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3.  

   Revolutionary?

   

   Ed, May 8th, 2000 @ 1:58pm

   
   

   I'm not sure that I agree that Napster is a revolutionary technique. In fact, the principle behind it looks an awful lot like reengineering the wheel to me.
   
   The same basic thing could have been accomplished with LDAP directory servers containing lists of FTP sites with music. You get standard protocols, well-known and trusted server-side software, and less effort all around. Your "Napster Client" would be nothing more than a combination LDAP client and FTP client.
   

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4.  

   Re: Revolutionary?

   

   Mike (profile), May 8th, 2000 @ 3:00pm

   
   

   Okay, let me clarify. When I say revolutionary, I don't mean from a technological standpoint - which it is obviously not. However, from a usage standpoint, they created a product that is used in very revolutionary way. Before this the methods by which folks shared music with eachother was much less efficient. What they did was build a product that was specific to this need. That's the revolutionary part.

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