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> if i recall right, often servers were run as take a file leave a file, so if you had something good to exchange that was social capital

Often there was a requests directory in the top level with you would need to upload a requested album/program in order to get access to the entire server. There was also banner clicking to get a password, but that never worked tbh.

I may be making this up, but I seem to recall a chat feature on one of Napster, Limewire, or Kazaa.

Soulseek is likely the one you're remembering. I remember talking to people with similar collections of music. Hotline was my primary passion for quite some time but soulseek had a longer run of utility in my childhood on the nascent web.

Thanks for sharing. Such rules (ul/dl ratios) have existed since the BBS era.

It's like local Google Drive.