Winamp will most likely have something to do with NFTs

[0x5066]

I intended to bump my previous thread about that mystical beta, that somehow got derailed into other things, fun! So, no point in that.
A friend of mine finally got an email asking to fill out another form, asking you a bunch of things and what you want from the new Winamp yadda yadda yadda, marketing talk.

Then what's that thread title about and why should you be concerned?

Someone on Twitter posted a screenshot of Jean-Louis Lauwers's Linkedin where it lists his position at Winamp as "NFT", with another line stating "Metaverse". If either has your head scratching, I'll explain quickly.

NFT
NFT's are "Non Fungible Tokens" where you essentially own a receipt of you owning a link to something, but never the thing you bought. They're often associated with stolen art (and now recently, musicians too), scams and legitimate collections consisting of very ugly art of various animals in the same pose with various different things (hats, expressions, etc).

METAVERSE
The "Metaverse" wants to be a glorified Holodeck, where you use some VR software to interact with others and it has it's ties to NFT and cryptocurrency exclusively, what's the point of that? No idea.


With these things in mind, it should be clear by now that the Winamp we knew and loved is dead, if their "Set the tone" marketing will lead to NFTs/cryptocurrency, which means that, whatever comes out, won't be the same as before anymore.

What to do now? What are your options?

At this point, you're better off with 5.666 or WACUP if you don't want to deal with this and neither the 5.8 beta.
"But I don't want alternatives, I only want the official updates from Winamp!"
GLWT. If you're happy with whatever they do now, I won't bother to stop or help you.

[dynamicradio]

I often check the forum for regular updates once a year or so and was surprised to see the website updated - but the wording on the site did make me worry.

Hearing about Cryptomining is also worrying - there seems to be a trend with Antivirus products adding this - why can't the products just focus on what they are good at. I don't really use my desktop to listen to music as much these days as not on it as much but when I do I always use Winamp - I'm a little worried that the name/brand might get ruined by the product trying to do too much and becoming too far removed from what made it so popular in the first place.

[0x5066]

Well if anything, my post does warn you about just that, I'm just waiting for the announcement to drop (whenever that happens)

[0x5066]

I told you so, none of you just didn't listen.

[NJK]

[DJ-Garybaldy]

I keep hearing about NFT's and even after reading up on them I still don't understand their purpose maybe I'm thick...

[0x5066]

That's why I put up a very quick summary of what they are in my thread, which should be easy to understand

[Alrock]

I keep hearing about NFT's and even after reading up on them I still don't understand their purpose maybe I'm thick...

You're not thick... You hit the nail on the head... They have no purpose...

Oh... Except for parting idiots from their cash.

[0x5066]

I've no idea if this is sarcasm or not

[NJK]

I've no idea if this is sarcasm or not

it's what you want to think about it,

as always with Winamp it's options , options and options.

You can use it as a basic player, you can use skins, milkdrop etc but options......

[0x5066]

not meant as a personal attack or anything, but are you telling me you still believe in them doing the right thing?

credit where credit is due, that's some dedication, at some point you just gotta give up and accept the loss

[NJK]

not meant as a personal attack or anything, but are you telling me you still believe in them doing the right thing?

Yep , just imagine that you are the current owner of the wellknown brand name Winamp
you would want to earn some money because you have your costs.
But are you willing to shame the name Winamp by forcing users to pay money??

Just think about that.

[/usr/bin/Tux]

I wish I had better reasons to come here again, but I need to say that WTF.

Could someone please buy Winamp and fire the people responsible for this giant mess?

[DJ-Garybaldy]

But are you willing to shame the name Winamp by forcing users to pay money??

If they are going to charge for Winamp then that boat has permanently sailed to another world... Its not even installed on this machine I have other software doing my music automation

[DJ Egg]

NFT was one potential part of the function for implementing support for Artist/Label submissions in a proposed music discovery type service, e.g. to guarantee that an album or song etc. is unique and belonging exclusively to the composer or copyright owner.

This particular additional feature itself has not yet been implemented in any alpha versions and won't be in any initial public beta version either.

We will not be charging for Winamp, though I can't personally guarantee there won't eventually be any additional subscription type services.

I honestly do not know at this point.



Just to be clear...

This new Winamp (6) will be more like a continuation of the WAFA project, but written from scratch, and as a cross-platform app for Android, iOS, web, etc.

As I've said all along, the Winamp (5) for Windows project is not dead.

Myself, Benski and others have been planning to work on it (there has been a few internal updates) - but the past couple of years have been extremely difficult. Personal real-life issues have gotten in the way and taken their toll. I personally have lost loved ones to covid.

Sorry for any confusion.

As always, I/we will keep you updated on any Winamp 5 or other news.