Napster dropped in 1999 and straight-up flipped the music world upside down. It was a peer-to-peer file sharing app that let people trade MP3s for free—no fees, no waiting, just fire up the dial-up and start downloading. Created by 18-year-old Shawn Fanning, it blew up fast, peaking with over 80 million users by 2001. Labels freaked out, lawsuits flew, and by July 2001, Napster got shut down. But it wasn’t just about the music—it cracked open the door for digital media, streaming, and how we think about owning content online. Napster 2.0 came back legit in 2003 under Roxio, but the wild west era was over. If you remember sneaking tracks at 2AM on a Gateway PC, yeah, you were part of that first wave.