It was the beginning of a new millennium. Personal computers began shipping with a new type of CD-Rom that allowed consumers to create their own CDs known as CD burners. The high-speed internet revolution was beginning to explode. All of a sudden, consumers found an easier and more effective way to listen to their favorite music. Instead of being forced to paying $15 or $20 per CD for a specific one or two songs they enjoyed, they were enabled to download their favorite tracks from file-sharing programs like Napster and Kazaa for free and make their own CDs. The combination of these three technologies created a disaster scenario for the long-established business model of the recording industry. Not only did sales drop dramatically, but CD burning also created a better product than they could. Coincidentally, the iconic tech entrepreneur, Steve Jobs, returned to the company he was previously ousted from and had an idea on how to help.
A year into his return to Apple, Steve Jobs had successfully rebranded Apple's personal computer lineup as a "digital hub", a place where all of your devices including your digital camera, digital camcorder, and MP3 player "all came together". In 2001, Jobs presented a small keynote on the Apple campus stating, "there was no market leader in the portable music player space". In this same keynote, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod. Promising one thousand songs in your pocket, the iPod not only allowed for the portability of more songs (in comparison to a CD which only held fifteen to twenty songs), the iPod was the first user-friendly MP3 player on the market.
Three years later in 2003, Jobs took to the stage yet again to introduce the first version of the iTunes Store. Up until then, Apple encouraged its users to "rip" their CDs that they already own to their computers and copy those "ripped" tracks to their iPods. With iTunes, Apple took all of the upsides of file sharing such as being able to obtain their favorite music without having to leave their homes and being able to get only the songs they want without having to buy a whole CD. In a meeting with Warner Bros Executive, Paul Vidich, a year and a half prior, Jobs interrupted Vidich through a presentation about what they were planning on doing to combat piracy, proclaiming "you guys have your head up your asses!", to which Vidich agreed and became one of the five major labels to work with Apple on the iTunes Store. Offering .99 cents a song, the iTunes Store became an instant success largely due to the fact that there were already two million copies of iTunes that instantly had access to the store through a software update.
Through a seemingly natural progression, from the rebranding of personal computers to the software music jukebox that was iTunes, to the first and arguably only successful MP3 player, the iPod and finally iTunes, Steve Jobs and Apple changed the entire music industry. They took the convenience of illegal file sharing and developed a brand new business model around it. At the beginning of the decade, the music industry reported that sales were declining fast and were already down 9%. In 2009, BusinessWire reported an uptake in revenue 2% mostly due to digital sales. Although many more players entered the industry within that decade, Apple, with Steve Jobs at the helm, was undoubtedly the first technology company to revamp the music industry.