Napster joins Limewire and Winamp by jumping on the web3 bandwagon

Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images

You can keep a good brand down. It can be stopped from being used by business types for name-recognition and nostalgia.

The pioneer of peer-to-Peer music-sharing-and-piracy service has been bought by a group of companies who plan to bring the brand to web3. Other web3-focused music startup have let musicians release albums and singles as NFTs, so perhaps expect something similar in Napster's reimagined future?

Hivemind is an investment firm dedicated to the use of cryptocurrencies and the digital assets industry, and Algorand is an operator of what is.

Hivemind's managing partner, Matt Zhang, announced the acquisition on LinkedIn, noting that volatile market and uncertain times often bring exciting opportunities.

We're doing great guns here when it comes to buzzword bingo, but we don't know what the future business model might be.

Never mind. It's possible to know that Napster is in a good place. Limewire, the star of the early-2000s piracy firmament, was being revived as a platform for NFTs, while the owners of Winamp announced they would be selling the software. It is not clear.

Although web3 advocates claim that tools like the NFTs are a way to deliver more value to smaller players, these technologies have really come into their own as financial instruments for using nostalgia. Neopets, HotWheels, Crazy Frog, and RadioShack are just a few of the naughties brands that have been revived in this way. Welcome to the team, Napster.