Napster wasn't a huge improvement at all. More people could use it sure, but it was awful on a technical level compared to anything else. You couldn't resume transfers. It automatically shared your library with everyone else. You could cancel any active transfers.. all this meant that most things I tried to download via Napster were from people who weren't intentionally sharing their mp3s, and would cancel any transfers they saw going. I had so many that I waited 10-15 minutes to download only to end up with an incomplete file that I had to throw away because I couldn't just resume it.
Downloading via IRC was objectively better in every way.
Downloading via IRC was objectively better in every way.