Everyone remembers the iPod, but Microsoft’s competing music player is often forgotten. During the iPod’s heyday, Microsoft introduced the Zune — a line of MP3 players with hard drives and flash storage options that integrated with the Zune Pass and the Zune Marketplace. The former was an early music streaming service, while the latter was a digital storefront that oddly required buyers to purchase large amounts of Zune “points” that could then be redeemed for songs. The Microsoft Zune’s design and software looks surprisingly modern today, but the more innovative part was the streaming service and social features.

It’s easy to look at platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music today and think that going all-in on streaming and social was the obvious choice for Microsoft. Back then, it wasn’t. People still wanted to own their music and were naturally wary of streaming services. The iPod’s success was directly linked to the iTunes Store, which revolutionized legal digital music ownership. The Zune Pass and the Zune Marketplace were nothing like iTunes, and that’s partly why the Zune failed. Microsoft’s big bet on streaming and social came too early.

Zune Pass was more than a music subscription

The streaming service let you download 10 DRM-free tracks monthly

Microsoft’s Zune Pass subscription service never really caught on, and was later rebranded to Groove Music. In hindsight, though, Zune Pass was better than the music streaming services we have today in at least one way. Zune Pass cost $15 per month and offered access to millions of tracks. You could stream them directly from a supported Zune device or download them to your music player from a PC.

The twist was that Zune Pass users could download 10 songs per month as MP3 files with absolutely no DRM (Digital Rights Management) software. At the time, songs cost about a dollar to own outright, so this was the equivalent of getting $10 of digital music monthly from your $15 subscription. Since these 10 songs per month were DRM-free and owned by the Zune Pass subscriber, they could be kept even if you canceled your subscription. You could do whatever you want with them, including burn the owned songs to CDs or transfer them to other devices.

This struck a neat balance between digital music streaming and digital media ownership. Zune Pass subscribers could keep their favorite songs each month with no strings attached, while maintaining streaming access to millions of songs with an active subscription. I know it’s a feature I’d be all-over if a modern music streamer offered it.

Beyond the hybrid streaming/ownership model, Zune was ahead of the curve on social features. It maintained a Zune Social online music community with features like Mixview, which created dynamic visual mosaic​​​​​​​s of suggested music related to a selected artist, album, or user. There were Zune Channels and Personal Picks — early examples of music discovery and recommendation features on a streaming service.

If that all sounds familiar, it’s because the social aspect of music streamers is part of the reason Apple Music, Spotify, and other platforms are incredibly popular.

You could ‘squirt’ songs to other Zunes

It’s the only thing you could do with Wi-Fi on Zune music players

Another streaming-adjacent feature that came with the Microsoft Zune was “squirting.” I didn’t come up with the name, I’m just the messenger. This was Microsoft’s brand for Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing. You could “spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends between Zune devices,” according to Microsoft. Users could share a song with a friend using a pair of Zunes, and their friend could listen to it up to three times over a three-day span — even without actually owning the song.

Microsoft wanted to create a Zune ecosystem, and this was just one part of that effort. By enabling peer-to-peer song sharing using the Zune’s on-device Wi-Fi capabilities, it was easier to briefly share songs with friends than using iPods and iTunes. It was also a music discovery tool that incentivized digital purchases. Zune users could flag a song they received from a squirt and easily buy it for themselves using the Zune Marketplace.

Like the Zune Pass, squirting didn’t take off. The name was basically unmarketable, and users at the time felt this was an underutilization of the Zune’s onboard Wi-Fi support — something that the iPod didn’t have and could’ve been a key differentiator.

The Microsoft Zune might’ve been too early

People hated Zune Pass in its heyday, but sentiment changed completely

Microsoft was somehow too early and too late for the Zune to be a hit. The first Zune came out in 2006, and the iPod Video (5/5.5 generation) was a massive success at the same time. Apple ended up selling 39.4 million iPods in the fiscal year of 2006. In that sense, Microsoft was far too late to join the MP3 player wars with the Zune — the iPod had already won.

And since people were still very skeptical of streaming services, Zune Pass couldn’t take off. It wouldn’t be until Spotify reached the U.S. in the 2010s that it, and other streaming services, were widely seen as the future.