While many might attribute the creation of the MP3 player to Apple, the fact is that the portable media player market was a few years old before Apple released the game-changing iPod. What made the iPod a nearly instant success, and certainly a phenomenal success by any measure years later, is the wealth of cheap MP3 downloads available via the iTunes Store. By putting the ability to buy and download cheap MP3s in an accessible format, Apple had essentially changed the rules of the game in a very fundamental way.

Prior to Apple’s introduction of the iPod and iTunes, the concept of cheap MP3 players and downloads usually meant ripping existing CDs or pirating via services such as Napster or the very nascent BitTorrent networks. Years later and many high profile lawsuits from the RIAA and the prospect of piracy does not seem as glamorous as it was in the heady days of music for nothing. This tarnishing of media piracy has only made cheap MP3 downloads and Apple’s micro-payment model more attractive to consumers on the whole.

As iTunes has grown over the years, it has also evolved in many notable ways. One way in which iTunes has grown dramatically is in regards to its offerings. No longer limited to serving up cheap MP3s, iTunes now offers countless PodCasts, hundreds of television shows, thousands of movies and an ever increasing number of applications for iPods and iPhones alike. Recent iterations of iTunes have also added and subsequently improved a community rating system that allows customers to easily find other items that they might like to purchase. All of this started with a simple concept: sell a media player by making a digital storefront capable of selling cheap MP3s.

Apple is certainly not alone in this endeavor as many other online retailers sell cheap MP3s via their own online stores. In fact, this competition has proven to be extremely helpful for the market a whole as it has forced Apple and other vendors to offer a greater range of products and to offer media that is not protected by digital right management (DRM) schemes. Apple’s media players once occupied only the upper strata of the portable media player market but now range from the sub-$50 shuffle to the incomparable iPhone. Additionally, Apple and other vendors have ceased promoting copy protected music in an effort to allow consumers the ability to change media players between brands without fear of losing their collection of cheap MP3s and other media.

Cheap MP3s have not only proven great for consumers and retailers, but also for suppliers. Many flash memory vendors have built a name for themselves selling flash memory dedicated for media players. These same vendors are currently stepping into the desktop and laptop markets with high performance drives that may very well change the shape of modern computing.