You know, it just occured to me that for a long time I've been doing a $/hour measurement system, but I've never tried to apply this to music. Let's see how it goes.
First let's look at going to a movie in a movie theater. $8/2 hours = $4/hour for one person to go. A little pricey for a one-time thing, but you get a massive screen, lots of sound, and day 1 access to movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, involving years of work from hundreds or thousands of people.
9-12 months later, you buy that same movie on DVD. $15/2 hours = $7.5/hour which is about twice as expensive as the theater, but you get to play it back as much as you want, pause and rewind, and watch with as many people as you want.
Now you're bored with the movie, so you play a game. $50/15 hours = $3.33/hour with unlimited playback, viewed or played by as multiple people, at the same time or independently. It's much cheaper than the DVD because it's much cheaper to make and has lots of "down time" and repeated areas with less cinematic polish than a movie.
Now it's time to relax with some music you bought off iTunes. $1/4 minutes = $15 per hour. It's twice the price of a movie on DVD with some similar features. You can play it repeatedly, pause and rewind, multiple people can listen at once... and that's where the similarities end. Unlike a DVD, you can't play your iTunes song on any device, you can only play it on the iPod. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be if certain DVDs would only work on certain players? Oh wait, that's like the upcoming Blu-ray vs HD DVD format war. Standard and interoperability benefit the user. DVDs are also very good quality. Granted they're not the best resolution if you have an HD system, but unlike >128 with kbps audio, the hardware and discs to support 1080i/p video haven't been around for years. So basically you pay twice what you would for a movie on DVD per hour of entertainment, and find yourself restricted needlessly and inconveniently to one product, while there are higher-quality versions of what you just paid for floating out there in stores and on the internet. Consider that movies also have a mixture of regular and specially-composed music played in the background, and you should be wondering why you're paying so much for the music.
Really, it's not so great when you think about it. If I could get 2 songs for $1 and they'd have at least twice the bitrate per channel, recorded and distributed in >2 channel audio whenever possible, I might start coughing up money. 2x the quality, 2x the channels, and 2x the music, and I might be hooked. Assuming of course they were to drop the stupid iPod-only policy. DVDs can do without it, why can't Apple? Even HD DVD and Blu-ray, which are criticized for not being FULLY supported by all the movie studios out there, work with more than just one product line. Can you imagine what a nightmare things would be if such a needless and anti-competitive practices like iTunes' were picked up by other businesses? You can only get gas at a gas station if you have their particular car, even though it's the same gas everyone sells. Can't drive on a road unless your car, again, is a particular type, even though the roads are all the same and compatible. You can't buy ice cream without getting ice cream cones as well. You can only buy Nike shoes if you're wearing Nike socks. Getting the picture yet? Locking consumers out unless they give unnecessary support to your other products, which may or may not be up to scratch, just sucks. Here's something more realistic though: Can't transfer to an iPod unless you use an Apple-specific interface, Apple's own software, compatible ONLY with music from their store, not your old MP3 collection... so basically the only way to access their music selection or their "MP3 player" would be by going Apple-only on their products. Now, Apple isn't entirely stupid, if they had such an exclusive product their ultra-dedicated fans would eat it right up and they'd sell 100,000 iPods, instead of 10+ million a year.
So they do the bare minimum to survive. They let people access non-iTunes music and expand their potential consumer base from a few million to a few hundred million. And for people who still have CD players and cars without iPod hookups, they let people burn CDs. But ask yourself, how much longer are they going to offer that? CDs are fading fast, cars with iPod mounts are being designed and manufactured, and if they were to get rid of CD-burning support for iTunes songs, it would eliminate people trying to circumvent their DRM by re-ripping to MP3. Sounds like a winning option for Apple, the only reason not to do it is the users who would complain. But hey, Apple's always done its own thing and chosen to support or drop support for whatever technologies they want... (PowerPC processors anyone? I hear some enthusiasts were pissed when they stopped making more powerful models).
The problem is when people are passive and satisfied by what they've got. Isn't that Apple's whole marketing thing? Don't be satisfied with your PC, here's what's wrong with it, even if you didn't realize it. But don't question our products and services. And don't even THINK of moving away from our stuff, because we go out of our way to make a transition away from them to be inconvenient and expensive (rebuying iTunes songs for example).
Remember this about iTunes, iPod, and Apple marketing. The voice which shouts the loudest isn't always the smartest.