That iTune business model

Just a short follow up to my earlier posting on business models. I (and others) have often argued that one of the key success of the iPod was its business model -- in that it made it easy and legal to download music. Here is confirmation from Nick Bilton piece in New York Times A Technology World That Revolves Around Me:

While I was a student in college, my friends and I stole music all the time. Sure, you could buy some songs online, but the choices were extremely limited, and it's an understatement to say that the process of actually buying the music was painful. Getting it onto a digital device required a computer engineering degree and a lot of patience.

My music heist came to a screeching halt in 2003 when Apple opened the iTunes music store. With the single click of a button, I could download, transfer, and listen to an entire album or a single song. The entire transaction took seconds. And since the only way to do this with one click was to buy the music, I happily paid.

BTW - the point of the article:

When people want to know how the media business will deal with the Internet, the best way to begin to understand the sweeping changes is to recognize that the consumer of entertainment and information is now in the center. That center changes everything. It changes your concept of space, time and location. It changes your sense of community. It changes the way you view the information, news and data coming directly to you.

Now you are the starting point. Now the digital world follows you, not the other way around.

The piece is adapted from Bilton's (one of the NYTimes tech writers) new book: I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works. Not sure I completely buy this -- and not sure I haven't heard this line of "how everything has changed" before. But, still, interesting.