You might not find a dominant manufacturer but you would find dominant standards where compatibility is concerned.
The iPod is an interesting example I agree, but it is still generally towards the high end of the MP3 player market and it still supports the standard MP3 format making is compatible with all the music you already own.
So switching from another brand of MP3 player to iPod (or vice versa) is pretty easy, there's no real case of having to choose.
If Apple had chosen a different audio format for the iPod for example , that meant you would have to buy your music in a format that was only compatible with it then I doubt it would have enjoyed the success.
The only reason the iPod is cheap anyway is market pressure from competing manufacturers. If Apple had per my previous example gone with a different audio format and been the only player in town they would have kept their prices high and it would have become inevitable that a competitor would have entered at some point with a lower cost product.
The only thing that would keep people from buying the competing product at that point would be that all their music would be stuck with apple , making them a defacto monopoly but over time the lower prices of the competitor would either force their prices down or drive them out.
The iPod is an interesting example I agree, but it is still generally towards the high end of the MP3 player market and it still supports the standard MP3 format making is compatible with all the music you already own.
So switching from another brand of MP3 player to iPod (or vice versa) is pretty easy, there's no real case of having to choose.
If Apple had chosen a different audio format for the iPod for example , that meant you would have to buy your music in a format that was only compatible with it then I doubt it would have enjoyed the success.
The only reason the iPod is cheap anyway is market pressure from competing manufacturers. If Apple had per my previous example gone with a different audio format and been the only player in town they would have kept their prices high and it would have become inevitable that a competitor would have entered at some point with a lower cost product.
The only thing that would keep people from buying the competing product at that point would be that all their music would be stuck with apple , making them a defacto monopoly but over time the lower prices of the competitor would either force their prices down or drive them out.