In addition to the points made by the sibling comment, the iPod was a quality product well executed, early competing MP3 players were not great. Flash based pl

In addition to the points made by the sibling comment, the iPod was a quality product well executed, early competing MP3 players were not great. Flash based players were smaller but limited in size and expansion media was expensive. Hard drive players were hobbled with USB 1.1 connections and an obsession with drag and drop for management. The iPod by default just synched with your iTunes library. The FireWire (and eventually USB 2.0) did so quickly. The navigation was as good as the metadata which iTunes made easy to edit. The UX on the device made scrolling through long lists of songs very easy. The iPod made using an MP3 easy and approachable for normal people. The Rio, Nomad, and a multitude of others did not. They included a bunch of checklist features but didn't focus on usability until Apple dominated the market.