I'm sorry, but only two of those points are true. When iTunes came out, there was nothing like it in the market. A great way to manage and buy new music all at one place? Plenty of room for invention.
The proof that is was such a unique experience? The labels spent the next 2 years fighting tooth and nail for 'control' of their music catalogs back from iTunes.
I agree. Imagine not looking at your cell phone and thinking about how some shitty company with a government-granted oligopoly is screwing you over and treating you badly.
That's hardly true. iTunes is/was based on SoundJam which Apple bought. Before iTunes was available on Windows Apple recommended a third-party package (the name of which escapes me) for using iPods on that platform. The iTunes Music Store had (nascent) competition, and it arrived after iTunes had been released for a while.
You mean MusicMatch? Yeah, I had MusicMatch, and it was horrid for connecting to ipods and other gadgets. Plus, the buying experience was a mess. I don't remember SoundJam too well, but I don't seem to remember that you connect devices to it to transfer music, and I'm completely certain you couldn't buy music from the software itself.
Remember, this is back during the heydays of Napster, Audiogalaxy and the free download craze for music. iTunes, along with mp3.com, made it completely easy to download legit copies of music, which hadn't been possible before.
The proof that is was such a unique experience? The labels spent the next 2 years fighting tooth and nail for 'control' of their music catalogs back from iTunes.