Yeah, no. Before streaming by and far the most amount of people didn't buy music in iTunes. They either torrented it or (if technically challenged) simply bought it physically and then ripped it to iTunes.
Minor nitpick, but ripping from CD to iTunes in the early days was a nontrivial process for the technically challenged. I'd argue that audiophiles were the group most likely to have done this, i.e., to get lossless music files. (The resulting file sizes were monstrous, of course, and this eventually led to some storage issues. But I digress.)
I'd argue that the technically challenged were the vanguard of buying music files on iTunes. The tech-savvy were torrenting, and everyone else found the iTunes store a really easy way to click and download music. In fact, I distinctly remember snarky comments back in the day about how paying $0.99 per track on iTunes was "a tax on technical illiteracy."
I'd say of the technically challenged there was a subset that used iTunes to buy maybe a few tracks or albums, and certainly not enough to keep them 'trapped' in the Apple ecosystem.
You're correct. I think my memory of product timelines in the early days is a bit hazy.
Even still, I'd love to see data that ripping from CD was a prevalent use case at all in the early days. I believe it was originally intended as an onboarding process / ecosystem-lock mechanism. The assumption: a lot of consumers (at the time) have CD libraries; by allowing them to easily port over to iTunes, we can port their libraries onto our ecosystem; from there, we have them. That was clearly the idea...but I'd love to learn more about how common a use case this ended up being.
May Apple and Nike introduce Nike+iPod, including an in-shoe sensor to track the wearer's workout on their iPod nano
Colorado Rockies pitcher Jason Jennings shows one of the iPods he and his teammates use to scout opposing batters during the 2006 season
September iTunes begins selling full-length feature films
iPod nano gets a new aluminum design available in five colors
Apple unveils a wearable new iPod shuffle with built-in clip
October Apple announces the new iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition to benefit The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Number of iPods sold through 2006: 88 million