Apple has a long list of reasons why their service is going to change the world. 

"You're only paying 99 cents per song! You get to keep the song! It’s not a subscription service! You can listen to files in real time from other computers on your home network! It has audio books! Music downloaded from iTunes can be used as soundtracks for your computer-edited home movies! Burn CDs! And… EXPERT LISTENERS have judged that the audio encoding sounds JUST LIKE the original source!"

So is this what the fuss is all about? Apparently, this is what a fraction of 3% of the world's computer users are using avidly. "Thank you Apple!!" Heck, you’d might as well delete your copy of Morpheus, WinMX and Kazaa. The world is a new and better place.

Thing is, these features are all irrelevant. Apple has apparently not found any good solution to the dilemma of online music sharing. They can only spruce-up a system that the wrong people have been trying to implement for years. "Rip-Mix-Burn" has become "Acquire. Manage. Listen." What had been a push for major change is now just a way of settling for something less offensive.

Charging 99 cents per download.

The entire hassle of pulling out your credit card, or doing anything apart from just immediately downloading music, is fatal. The difference between a buck and nothing is vast. Heck, even a nickel would be too much.

There's a very nice idea being thrown around which, I believe, I first saw in a column by Don Tapscott. The concept is to have a fixed tax that could be built-in to the user's monthly ISP costs. People would be charged painlessly, almost unknowingly. The money would be funneled to the right people. Now that's in line with our times.

The bottom line is that the most essential factor is obviously money. Why would anyone subject themselves to the horrors of Kazaa? Because most people are very aware of having more time to invest in the slow and unreliable response of these networks than they have money to spend at iTunes.

The biggest problem lies with those kids who want gratification to be brutally instant. But then who has to pay? Make the parents do it. Make it something the kid won't even know exists. Let them continue feeling cool.

Once you have the music file on your computer, all the other iTunes features are not an issue. People can do all the burning and sharing right now with MP3s downloaded from Kazaa. The only feature people are really looking for is the ability to possess a sound file of their favorite music.

When this becomes available to PC users, the free services will continue to thrive. And unless something more in line with the expectations of today's user can be achieved, iTunes will be remembered as a beautiful idea that only a tiny fraction of the public supported.