Digital distribution removed cost and genre limits that had constrained music tastes

Evidence

In the nineties, CDs and cassette tapes made music portable, allowing high school and college students to create soundtracks for their daily lives. But these formats came with limitations: CDs were expensive, were often hard to find, and offered finite options. The internet changed all that. College students with campus broadband could now swap music files with friends or scour primitive file-sharing platforms, using software like Winamp to play their growing digital collections. … The next breakthrough came in June 1999, with the launch of Napster, a peer-to-peer file-sharing network that connected music-obsessed youth across the globe. Napster didn’t just make music free—it made it limitless. Fans no longer had to gamble on an expensive album or stay within the confines of a favorite genre. Instead, they could download tracks from any artist, style, or era, from Brazilian bossa nova to death metal. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 126