I was constantly shopping around for MP3 players, they were too expensive with too little space, or not great reliability. The issue is that for a young person, such as myself, this was a big investment. The best thing to do before the iPod was really an mp3 cd player, because you could have many of these CDs.

If all we're working with anecdata, I honestly don't know anyone who didn't have an mp3 collection before the iTunes store.