Good point. It's not fair to associate Napster with slow download speeds. I would have loved to see how Napster evolved with broadband. Tragic they were shutdown.
My college used DC++ to internally share music, movies, tv shows, and porn. You could browse someones entire media collection. It gave you an overall sense for their taste in music and was a great way to find new bands. Reading about Napster reminded me how much I miss this feature.
The article glosses over how slow Napster '99 was. I remember waiting a couple hours to download an album. Fast downloads are more important than social features. I do not miss Napster.
Google's acquisition of Slide for $100m crushed me. Myself and several others built more successful companies. We had 10x the userbase, larger profits (assuming this based on userbase), and fewer employees (team of 3 here). The difference was I was bootstrapped and working in stealth.
Lesson's learned: avoid bootstrapping. Raise venture capital from well networked investors. Do not work in stealth mode. Do a lot of PR. Be loud!
This ensures that the failure of your company will be an embarrassment for your investors. The louder the better. They will be inclined to have a friend buy you out to save face.
Disclaimer. I'm not saying that should be your primary goal. Goal number one should be passionately building a product you love. A buddy exit is simply a safety net.