5 ms·

It looks like this could also be partly due to the recessions in 2001 and 2008, based on the chart, as well as the decline in physical media.

by foota 6y ago

chrisco255 6y ago
If you notice, the decline started in 1999, while economy was absolutely booming. There was also a recession in 1991, and the industry revenue continued to grow there. CDs were still very much the primary method of consumption for audio well into the early 2000s. But yes, eventually (by 2005 or so) the iPod had become very sleek and popular. Still, iPods were generally powered by iTunes sales, and you'll note the iTunes sales never made up for the loss in CD sales. Part of the reason for that could be that for the first time, you could buy single tracks rather than pay for an entire album of songs you may or may not like. Certainly torrents had a dramatic effect on sales. Even when I was in high school in early 2000s, kids were selling bootlegged CDs for $5 a pop because they had burners and fast enough connections to download many songs (broadband wasn't even that widespread in early 2000s). Everyone was on Napster after it came out in 1999. I can't even describe to you the magic of being able to download virtually any song you can think of. Prior to that, you had to hunt a song down physically or listen to a radio station for hours, hoping to catch it in time to press the record button on your cassette tape.
- georgespencer 6y ago
  Great point about CDs being pretty much recession-proof. Minor quibble: > iPods were generally powered by iTunes sales I think this is the lionised view of the iPod, but it's not really backed up by the stats or the early marketing ("Rip. Mix. Burn.") which was targeted at folks who were still buying CDs. Apple sold its 10 millionth iTunes song in September of 2003, and around that time would have sold around 1.5 million iPods (they'd sold 600k in January '03, and announced that they'd shipped 2 million in January '04). So if you assume that all iTMS sales are to iPod owners (as someone who did not own an iPod until around 2007, but bought music on iTunes, I am a very small datapoint that speaks to this not being true!), then the average iPod owner either only had only around 7 songs on their iPod, or iPods were principally powered by CD rips and illegal downloads. It doesn't change the thrust of your point but I thought you might find it interesting.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    iTunes wasn't even available on Windows initially. (Although it was added pretty quickly.) It was definitely primarily initially about songs ripped from CDs (or downloaded via Napster).
    - catalogia 6y ago
      The first iPod to really become popular was the 4G, which I think not coincidentally was also the first to have proper USB support. iTunes not being on Windows seems like a lesser factor; even if iTunes was on Windows it wouldn't have mattered because most Windows computers of that time did not have firewire ports. As soon as iPods supported USB fully, their popularity took off like a rocket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#/media/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#/media/File:Ipod_sales_pe... Incidentally, cmdrtaco was right about the extant iPod he was actually criticizing. It was lame and that iPod never became popular. He's mocked in retrospect because later revisions of the iPod became massively popular, but the version he was responding to never did.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        I largely agree with all that. The eventual incredible success of the iPod which in turn was the beachhead for the iPhone (which also wasn't really a massive success until the 3G) tends to obscure its early history. The initial iPod was basically one of many digital music players available at the time and, as you say, you couldn't even really use it with the desktop computers that had something like 95% market share. Apple clearly became one of the most successful companies ever, but it's not like that was an inevitability as soon as they released the first iPod.
      - georgespencer 6y ago
        Totally agree, in the main. Looking back it's very weird and un-Apple-like that iPod launched without iTMS, although taking their time held them in good stead with the App Store and simultaneously launching new hardware alongside a marketplace seems to have held them back with iPad/iBooks and the watch + its anaemic store. I quibble one point you made (sorry -- former employees sometimes turn into nitpicking apologists): > cmdrtaco was right about the extant iPod he was actually criticizing. It was lame and that iPod never became popular. You're right that this iPod never became as popular as we understand the iPod to have been looking back from 2020, but the implication is that it was held back because of the assessment cmdrtaco made of it: > No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. Clearly it had no WiFi and a lower capacity than a Nomad, but that would continue to be the case for many years, right up to peak iPod in 2008 when Apple introduced the first iPod with WiFi (iPod Touch 1G). (Apple was never interested in competing on capacity -- a feature -- and actively sought to reframe marketing towards _benefits_, like how many songs or photos the capacity enabled you to hold in your pocket.) So the absence of WiFi and lower capacity than Creative's lineup did not appear to be limiting factors in the iPod's success. I think they made it lame to cmdrtaco, but each subsequent iPod for the better part of a decade 'suffered' from the same lameness, and did so well that Amazon had precisely two sections for MP3 players for many years: "iPod" and "Non-iPod Music players"! I believe that the tipping point for iPod came alongside several things: the final refinement to the interaction model (scroll wheel => touch wheel -- the first device is identifiably an iPod but almost ashamedly so, with buttons around the edge of the wheel which ruin the fascia), the miniaturisation of the device (and in particular the ruthless Jobsian cannibalisation of the Mini with the Nano), and the vacuum of competition around iTMS from its launch through 2006 or so.

It looks like this could also be partly due to the recessions in 2001 and 2008, based on the chart, as well as the decline in physical media.

by foota 6y ago

It looks like this could also be partly due to the recessions in 2001 and 2008, based on the chart, as well as the decline in physical media.

chrisco255 6y ago

If you notice, the decline started in 1999, while economy was absolutely booming. There was also a recession in 1991, and the industry revenue continued to grow there. CDs were still very much the primary method of consumption for audio well into the early 2000s. But yes, eventually (by 2005 or so) the iPod had become very sleek and popular. Still, iPods were generally powered by iTunes sales, and you'll note the iTunes sales never made up for the loss in CD sales. Part of the reason for that could be that for the first time, you could buy single tracks rather than pay for an entire album of songs you may or may not like. Certainly torrents had a dramatic effect on sales. Even when I was in high school in early 2000s, kids were selling bootlegged CDs for $5 a pop because they had burners and fast enough connections to download many songs (broadband wasn't even that widespread in early 2000s). Everyone was on Napster after it came out in 1999. I can't even describe to you the magic of being able to download virtually any song you can think of. Prior to that, you had to hunt a song down physically or listen to a radio station for hours, hoping to catch it in time to press the record button on your cassette tape.

georgespencer 6y ago
Great point about CDs being pretty much recession-proof. Minor quibble: > iPods were generally powered by iTunes sales I think this is the lionised view of the iPod, but it's not really backed up by the stats or the early marketing ("Rip. Mix. Burn.") which was targeted at folks who were still buying CDs. Apple sold its 10 millionth iTunes song in September of 2003, and around that time would have sold around 1.5 million iPods (they'd sold 600k in January '03, and announced that they'd shipped 2 million in January '04). So if you assume that all iTMS sales are to iPod owners (as someone who did not own an iPod until around 2007, but bought music on iTunes, I am a very small datapoint that speaks to this not being true!), then the average iPod owner either only had only around 7 songs on their iPod, or iPods were principally powered by CD rips and illegal downloads. It doesn't change the thrust of your point but I thought you might find it interesting.
- ghaff 6y ago
  iTunes wasn't even available on Windows initially. (Although it was added pretty quickly.) It was definitely primarily initially about songs ripped from CDs (or downloaded via Napster).
  - catalogia 6y ago
    The first iPod to really become popular was the 4G, which I think not coincidentally was also the first to have proper USB support. iTunes not being on Windows seems like a lesser factor; even if iTunes was on Windows it wouldn't have mattered because most Windows computers of that time did not have firewire ports. As soon as iPods supported USB fully, their popularity took off like a rocket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#/media/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#/media/File:Ipod_sales_pe... Incidentally, cmdrtaco was right about the extant iPod he was actually criticizing. It was lame and that iPod never became popular. He's mocked in retrospect because later revisions of the iPod became massively popular, but the version he was responding to never did.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I largely agree with all that. The eventual incredible success of the iPod which in turn was the beachhead for the iPhone (which also wasn't really a massive success until the 3G) tends to obscure its early history. The initial iPod was basically one of many digital music players available at the time and, as you say, you couldn't even really use it with the desktop computers that had something like 95% market share. Apple clearly became one of the most successful companies ever, but it's not like that was an inevitability as soon as they released the first iPod.
    - georgespencer 6y ago
      Totally agree, in the main. Looking back it's very weird and un-Apple-like that iPod launched without iTMS, although taking their time held them in good stead with the App Store and simultaneously launching new hardware alongside a marketplace seems to have held them back with iPad/iBooks and the watch + its anaemic store. I quibble one point you made (sorry -- former employees sometimes turn into nitpicking apologists): > cmdrtaco was right about the extant iPod he was actually criticizing. It was lame and that iPod never became popular. You're right that this iPod never became as popular as we understand the iPod to have been looking back from 2020, but the implication is that it was held back because of the assessment cmdrtaco made of it: > No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. Clearly it had no WiFi and a lower capacity than a Nomad, but that would continue to be the case for many years, right up to peak iPod in 2008 when Apple introduced the first iPod with WiFi (iPod Touch 1G). (Apple was never interested in competing on capacity -- a feature -- and actively sought to reframe marketing towards _benefits_, like how many songs or photos the capacity enabled you to hold in your pocket.) So the absence of WiFi and lower capacity than Creative's lineup did not appear to be limiting factors in the iPod's success. I think they made it lame to cmdrtaco, but each subsequent iPod for the better part of a decade 'suffered' from the same lameness, and did so well that Amazon had precisely two sections for MP3 players for many years: "iPod" and "Non-iPod Music players"! I believe that the tipping point for iPod came alongside several things: the final refinement to the interaction model (scroll wheel => touch wheel -- the first device is identifiably an iPod but almost ashamedly so, with buttons around the edge of the wheel which ruin the fascia), the miniaturisation of the device (and in particular the ruthless Jobsian cannibalisation of the Mini with the Nano), and the vacuum of competition around iTMS from its launch through 2006 or so.