Apple faced the same sort of defection with the iTunes Store. Not every music publisher allowed its music to be sold there at first. Music publishers also put t

Apple faced the same sort of defection with the iTunes Store. Not every music publisher allowed its music to be sold there at first. Music publishers also put together competing consortiums to distribute emusic through companies they controlled. It's perfectly rational for them to want to do this (it's been said that while more music is bought than ever before, recording industry revenues have been cut in half) but it seems unlikely that a CVS/Rite Aid consortium will release a product more popular with consumers than Apple's might be. But it still might take several years for other competitors to give up and join in. And, of course, anything can happen in that time.