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Comment by mattmaroon | Hacker News Reader

It's been a lot more than 1 year. It began with the iPod DRM. It's just been smacking everyone in the face for that long.

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Apple had no control over the DRM: they needed it to get the companies. And they've been slowly reducing the DRM thanks to iTunes Plus. A few more of my albums converted themselves today, and they sound a bit better too.

This behavior is inexplicable, though. I can't recall Apple doing something so bullheaded in quite a little while.

"Apple had no control over the DRM: they needed it to get the companies."

True and false. Apple needed some sort of DRM. However, they didn't have to refuse to license their DRM. They had a competitive advantage and they leveraged it in a consumer-unfriendly manner. It's what they do now.

What did their refusing to license their DRM have to do with impacting the customers? I'm not being sarcastic: I don't quite understand what effect that had on users.

It makes it impossible to legally play Fairplay-encrypted files on non-Apple devices.

It also makes it impossible to DRM non-Apple provided files on Apple devices.

As much as I'd like to see DRM go away, if it has to exist, there had better be one spec that lets me buy from any store to play on any device.

Until you've burnt it to a cd and ripped it again :/

How many people actually use DRM on the iPod/iPhone? I'd say a negligible amount.

What percentage of people buy songs from iTunes? Probably more than half. Certainly not a negligible amount.

I think we're both taking this to extremes now :) Maybe 10-20% I'll give you that.

You think that only 10-20% of all iPod users buy tracks from iTunes? I don't think that would be enough to make it the #1 music store.

I have no actual data to back that up though.

Just anecdotal evidence - I know a lot of people with iPods, but not many who buy any music from iTunes.

Also, being the #1 music store is still not saying an awful lot compared with other sources of getting music.

Do you think more people use the store than already own CDs? or download music from p2p?

It seems like it was such from the very start. Apple had many restrictions on third party apps for the early Mac, meanwhile Microsoft embraced developers, and with the likes of AmiPro, Windows 3.1 flourished. I believe this is one of the major reasons why the Mac lost market share. Although probably better positioned than before, Apple may be making the same mistake.

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