January 7, 2009
"What if Napster did become a real, legit thing? It would have anticipated Facebook and Friendster and MySpace. It would have been social networking. It would have allowed you to make mixtapes and trade playlists. It would have eventually gone to cell phones; it would have predated the iPhone. It could have been an incredibly powerful service—and not just because everything was free. You charge people a fair price for that, maybe that anti-music-industry contingent wouldn’t have taken it, but a lot of people would have."

Steve Knopper in this week’s Village Voice. All true.