Here’s Cyrus Farivar, writing for Ars Technica in a very good feature about Winamp’s decline: This was a major turnoff for Winamp users. Eventually, AOL decided software like Winamp was a promotional opportunity for the dial-up service, and soon installing Winamp meant declining offers for “free” AOL subscriptions. That massive revenue stream made it hard to prioritize other projects-even those for which AOL paid millions. RELATED: RIP AIM, the Messaging App AOL Never WantedĪOL, meanwhile, was still making ridiculous sums of money with its infamously sandboxed dial-up service.
Page views to the Winamp website brought in a big chunk of ad revenue, sure, and thousands of people paid $10 for the Pro version of the software, but that was about it regarding revenue. That’s quite the payout for a four-person team, but AOL never really knew what to do with what they bought. In June of 1999, AOL acquired Nullsoft (the company behind Winamp) for $80 million. Our story’s ending begins with a buyout, like many other 90s tech stories. Part of the appeal came from the community: a plugin and skin ecosystem allowed designers and developers to customize things in surprising ways, and music nerds loved having that kind of control.
It quickly became a hit, despite only having a four-person team behind it. Winamp was lightweight, customizable, and made listening to music easier than any player that came before it.
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