@retrohistories @masukomi That's like the whole purpose of the final chapter of my book Shareware Heroes. It's complicated, but in essence shareware faded away as digital distribution and direct online sales got easier — a slow process that began in the late 1990s, accelerated in the early 2000s, and finished around the time of the iPhone's launch.

And it never really _died_; rather, the term just sort of stopped getting used. Where before we had "shareware software" and "shareware games" we instead had things sold in much the same form as "apps" (with in-app purchases and/or demo/lite versions) and "indie games".

Somewhere along the way the term became irrelevant because it became the default way to sell and distribute software and games.