Quote:
Originally Posted by fredr123
Apple and Steve Jobs were instrumental in getting record labels and the industry in general on board with downloading music. Napster shut down in July 2001 and the ITMS opened its doors for the first time in the spring of 2003. It took someone with vision backed by a company with pockets deep enough to underwrite that gumption to make it happen. You might loathe iTunes and the ITMS for all their shortcomings, frustrations and quirks, but without those products pushing ahead through all the resistance, we might not have such cheap and LEGAL access to music as we do today.
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Legal, yes... cheap? Not really.
Look at Steam for a distribution platform that has drastically dropped prices through digital downloads. Sure, games cost the same as retail boxes initially, but nowadays you can get stuff like Mass Effect 2 for $5 if you catch a sale. Before digital distribution, it would maybe drop to $30 before you wouldn't find it in a store.