Napster Changed My Life.

I think back to the hayday of Napster and I realize what a catalyst for change that little program was for me. It was the summer of 2000, I was in California visiting family and I had heard so much about Napster, but I just didnt "get it." So I finally downloaded it on my uncle's computer and checked it out. I was blown away. Hooked, as they say. Back home and a few months later, my parents decided to get Road Runner. Napster of course took on a whole new meaning. I remember the first few nights we had it, I would listen to the radio at 9pm as they played songs from a bunch of new and upcoming artists. Or so I was lead to believe. The radio sucks, and I think I always suspected it, but it was hard to know for sure when I couldn't find music on my own very easily. But suddenly the power of highspeed internet access to Amazon.com and Napster opened up a whole new world of music to explore. Five years later, I along with many of my friends, are music fiends. I dont think that would have happened without Napster and it's successors.

Now the music I listen to defines alot of my life. It has lead me to new ideas, or at least ideas outside of the mainstream, ideas that are new to me. These new ideas brought new books to read, new magazines to check out, new movies to see, and new people to converse with. And it's all borne of the same free form, hyper-connected nature of the Internet. Napster exemplified a world of possibilities that I didnt understand, and probably couldn't understand, had it not existed.

The Internet at its core, is just one huge file-sharing network. So in that light, Napster was inevitable. And maybe so too, was my discovery of so much of the world.