"Long before Napster, cassette tapes were the go-to product for music swapping. Best of all, the RIAA couldn't get on your case because they couldn't track you."
Ahhh, but the RIAA did lobby Congress who imposed a tax on all blank cassette tapes to go into a fund to replace lost revenue to Musicians. I wonder if any Musicians ever got the money? The tax kept blank tape prices artificially high because it was a fixed amount per-tape. It was even applied to the special "digital" versions, which were not well suited for analog music recording, as well.