Music execs set that expectation, and artists just have to live with it. http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/branding/1559631/...

"During those meetings it was Warner executives, not Jobs as is commonly thought, who suggested tracks be sold for 99 cents. At the time, many labels wanted to price tracks at $3.49 each. But not Warner.

“When we told Steve, he looked at us like we just gave him a gift,” Vidich recalls. “We knew we needed to alter consumer behavior in a big way. Below $1 was an emotional threshold for people. It became an acceptable impulse purchase.”