It's simple economics. If purchasing music is easier than stealing music, then people will purchase music rather than stealing it. That is to say that if the value represented by the combination of time, effort, and money needed to legally aquire music is less than the value represented by the time and effort needed to steal music, then purchasing is the obvious choice. All irrelevant claims of "bestness" aside, the iPod, iTunes, and the iTMS makes aquiring much easier than any other method (easier is of course not better). But the point being that iPod + iTunes + iTMS is, for most people (not/. readers), "cheaper" than file sharing.
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It's simple economics. If purchasing music is easier than stealing music, then people will purchase music rather than stealing it. That is to say that if the value represented by the combination of time, effort, and money needed to legally aquire music is less than the value represented by the time and effort needed to steal music, then purchasing is the obvious choice. All irrelevant claims of "bestness" aside, the iPod, iTunes, and the iTMS makes aquiring much easier than any other method (easier is of course not better). But the point being that iPod + iTunes + iTMS is, for most people (not /. readers), "cheaper" than file sharing.