DeFi Has Something to Learn From Napster
The startups disrupting finance resemble the rule-breakers who changed music forever
To understand the world of decentralized finance–or at least the hype surrounding it—it’s helpful to remember what occurred in the music business about two decades ago.
In 1999, at the height of the dot-com boom, a 19-year-old college dropout named Shawn Fanning introduced Napster, a website that allowed users to share digital music files for free. Suddenly millions of users were downloading MP3 files of songs by Dr. Dre, Eminem, and Metallica instead of buying compact discs. Needless to say, this disrupted the business model that musicians and the recording industry relied on. Napster supporters argued that the industry needed to wake up and embrace the Digital Age.