Does Windows Media Player have any reason to exist?

Nowadays there are still many music lovers who regard WMP as a local music player and manager, but it seems that the destiny of WMP cannot be changed.
The first edition of WMP originally appeared in the 1992 Windows 3.1. In 2000 Microsoft added Stream function to WMP. Moreover, Microsoft install WMP8 in Windows XP in 2001.

This is the most important point. Before that, WMP was a built-in player of Windows with great performance and experience, which was widely recognized by users. At that time, attempting to create multimedia standard and competing with Apple, Microsoft launched special audio and video format WMA and WMV.

With the rapid development of Internet, there are more and more pirated audios and videos. Gradually relevant standards against it come out and the companies that comply with the standards have related patent. Microsoft, which is a big company, would not do something for patent infringement. Therefore, the formats that WMP supported are becoming less. In other words, Microsoft has been losing users.

WMP had been updated to the version 12 when Windows 7 was launched. Even though there is the latest Windows 10，the built-in WMP is still version 12 without any updates. Starting Windows 7, WMP has been declining.