Winamp
It really whipped the llama. Then AOL bought it.
CAUSE OF DEATH: AOL paid $80 million for it in 1999 and tried to shut it down in 2013.
Winamp was released on April 21, 1997 and by 2001 had 60 million users, all of whom can still hear its demo file: "it really whips the llama's ass." AOL bought its maker in 1999 for $80 million in stock and did AOL things. Users found Winamp3 unstable. The next version was 5, with its makers joking that "nobody wants to see a Winamp 4 skin." Meanwhile iTunes arrived. In 2013 AOL announced a shutdown, then sold it with Shoutcast instead, reportedly for $5 to $10 million. In 2024 the new owners published the source code and included code from Microsoft, Dolby and Intel, much of which they had no right to release. The repository was deleted three weeks later.