There was no streaming (bar fuzzy 30-second previews of tracks you were invited to buy), but the foundations had been laid. The most enduring of the early efforts was Apple’s iTunes Music Store, launched in 2003 to complement the company’s digital music player – the iPod. The music industry was not amused, throwing lawsuits at Napster, while simultaneously attempting to concoct legal equivalents. Napster in 1999 provided a straightforward peer-to-peer file-sharing system that gave you access to millions of tracks – for free. And as people ventured on to the internet in increasing numbers at the tail end of the 1990s, MP3 heralded the dawn of a music revolution. The end result of years of research into lossy algorithms, MP3 could approximate lossless audio (WAV AIFF) but required a fraction of the storage space. Their architects have unpacked and developed audio file formats, delivery platforms and smart algorithms, and sharp-eyed businesspeople have converted that vision into the subscription models we know today. Modern streaming services – TIDAL, Spotify, Apple Music et al – are the culmination of two decades of cutting-edge technological achievements, evolution and iteration.
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