Long before the music store existed, the iPod was entirely different than other MP3 players of the time.
When I got the first iPod, I also had a Creative Nomad player that had a little more storage and a search function. However, the iPod on the other hand had Firewire rather than USB 1.1, making it a painless process to add and remove songs right before you go somewhere, rather than a hours long process you had to plan in advance. Even more importantly the scroll wheel on ball bearings with made it feasible to fly through a tree of artists and albums with thousands of audio tracks.
The shift in convenience was on the level of shifting from a phonograph to a cassette tape, except that records are more convenient in some situations.
When I got the first iPod, I also had a Creative Nomad player that had a little more storage and a search function. However, the iPod on the other hand had Firewire rather than USB 1.1, making it a painless process to add and remove songs right before you go somewhere, rather than a hours long process you had to plan in advance. Even more importantly the scroll wheel on ball bearings with made it feasible to fly through a tree of artists and albums with thousands of audio tracks.
The shift in convenience was on the level of shifting from a phonograph to a cassette tape, except that records are more convenient in some situations.