Grooveshark

Grooveshark was a chaotic, community-built music library where nearly any song seemed one search away.

The attraction was the feeling of immediate access: think of a track, search for it, and begin listening in the browser. The community-built library made exploration feel broad and unpredictable, with the service acting as a meeting point between people's uploads and other people's listening.

That apparent simplicity depended on a platform behind the player. Its closure broke an established listening routine and made clear how a convenient online library can vanish as a service, even when the music itself continues to exist elsewhere.

Copyright litigation forced the music-streaming service to close.