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that the search technology wasn’t fast enough, and it would create a massive logjam if the number of simultaneous searches multiplied by fifty.

Parker thought that linking the servers was crucial no matter what the risk—not so much for the extra music it would bring users, but to unloose chat and still-to-be-developed functions from the isolated machines. If you wanted to search the universe of all other Napster users, it was impossible without connected servers. With linking, Parker imagined, the system would allow users to post personal profiles, showing what music they had available, what they were listening to the most, and what they had been playing most recently. If another user downloaded a file from that person, they might want to see what else the person was interested in. With work, the system could develop in such a way that some users emerged as thought leaders, and others would habitually turn to them to learn what was new and good, just as people turn again and again to the same friend in the real world for advice on a given topic.

“Ultimately, Napster could have evolved into a bazaar, where subcultures discovered each other,” Parker said. “You wouldn’t find an isolated person, but a person who had an interest in different genres, with their own taste, who was part of a community, and that user was a destination in that community. . . . It could lubricate the social discovery of music and accelerate it and usher in, I thought, a new golden age of music.” All of that would be possible only if all the servers were linked. And economically, linking would make Napster a natural monopoly. America Online’s AIM instant-messenger program worked the same way. It capitalized on the so-called network effect, in which the strength of the network grows geometrically with the addition of each user. That makes it very painful for someone to leave the network. Because AIM doesn’t interact with other instant-messaging systems, many users won’t leave it unless they can get most of their friends to leave as well. If Parker’s plan for a national system of music-community discovery worked, it would permanently lock in the company’s advantage before even very good rivals could put their shoes on.

After hearing about Gnutella, Shawn summarily dispensed with all the counterarguments. “We have to do it now. Like tonight,” he said. With Ritter still resisting, Shawn sat down to do it himself. “It drove me to stay up for two or three days and write,” Shawn said. “That was kind of

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