The end of the iPod: Goodbye to the little box that changed everything

The Washington Post reports on the Ipod and the music industry:

By early 2004, the New York Times would call the iPod — not Apple, but just the iPod — a billion-dollar business. But the music business would never be the same. The iTunes Music Store had shattered the tyranny of albums: Customers no longer had to buy an entire CD to get the one or two songs they really wanted. (Consider that only six of the 111 albums to sell 10 million copies have been released since the iPod’s debut.) The decline in album sales led record stores to close their doors for good. The dominant arbiter of America’s musical tastes shifted from Billboard to the iTunes Top 100. Eventually the Beatles and Led Zeppelin gave in and allowed Apple to sell their music, and finally AC/DC did, too. (Garth Brooks is now the most famous holdout.) All this, because of the iPod.

Anyone interested in music business should read this article.