Happy birthday, iTunes!
The question, seven years ago today, was whether people would pay 99 cents a song for music they could download on the web.
Apple already had the iTunes software on all Macs that shipped, but this was something new: An online store where people could purchase songs a la carte. Music downloads were in their infancy, with courts having forced Napster to shut down operations because people were sharing music and not paying anyone a cent for it.
Steve Jobs, in an interview with the L.A. Times, said Apple believed “the whole music system is being transformed. It’s going digital.” iTunes, he said, would capitalize on that.
Despite all the concerns about free services such as Morpheus and Grokster (did you even remember those?), iTunes did great, selling 1 million downloads in the first week.
Despite the (legal) resurrection of Napster and Microsoft partnering with AOL and other Internet giants on a new music service to rival iTunes, the store became a juggernaut and was cemented as the No. 1 online music store when it announced a Windows-compatible version six months later.
