The Internet was first invented in 1943, and by the late fifties, it was in common use, as people discovered more and more uses for it. One of its many uses that made it so popular was for bands to share and promote their music.
The Beatles, of course, were one of the biggest Internet presences around. On every site they joined, they had more likes, comments, and followers than they knew what to do with. Their inboxes were flooded with fanmail. Their videos were viewed and their tracks downloaded millions of times per day. The Beatles loved their fans and would respond to as much of the fan mail and as many of the comments as they could (well, except the negative ones, but actually, John did enjoy responding to those. And even typed out, his witty retorts never failed.) They would sometimes use their popularity to give other bands a leg up in the music business. One time they collaborated with the Rolling Stones in a YouTube video, causing the Stones’ subscriber count to double. That was the kind of people the Beatles were, and their fans loved them for it.
Even after the Beatles stopped touring and seeing their fans live, their popularity continued. After all, they were still able to put on live video concerts for their loyal, adoring fans, and they still responded to as much fan mail and as many of the comments as they could. So it was almost as if the Beatles had never really left at all.
“Do you like our new sound?” the Beatles would ask their fans in online polls, or “Would you listen to a seven-minute single if we released one?” (Of course the answer was yes, as they knew it would be.) So it was that by 1969, the Beatles had as strong a fan following as they did back in 1963 when their first music video went viral.
That proved to be very important. Because as it happened, the Beatles’ extreme popularity attracted as much bad attention as it did good.